Focal Spirit One Headphones - Page 5

American site:

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-68040-focal-spirit-one-headphones.aspx

$279 free shipping

Sorry Beagle, didn't notice your post earlier in the thread stating they only ship to US addresses. Maybe someone can proxy them for you?

Just ordered a pair, myself. 30 day money back guarantee if I really don't like them (like I hated the DT1350).
Edited by Maxvla - 3/4/12 at 11:44am

I just read the review in French of the Focal and here is a brief summary:
The comparison is against the Senn HD25, the perceived competition in the closed phone catagory. In brief the Focal has a warm signature with emphasis in the bass area. The bass is tight and well defined, but there is a small mid bass hump which can be a bit intrusive on songs with big bass, ie Bob Marley. Both the mids and highs are good and it bests the HD 25 in these two areas. The Senn. has a wider soundstage whereas the Focal's is deeper. All in all the Focal is a more enjoyable phone with good detail and instrument seperation. The Senn. is the more neutral of the two.
Edited by DWbirdseye - 3/4/12 at 3:53pm

 

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/focal/1.html

Ordered a pair of Fidelio L1s so I'll have both those and the Focals to compare side by side.

Nice that's what I've wanted to read. :)

 

What is it you don't like about their studio monitors?
 

 

ordered mine this morning, and should be getting my focal spirit one by tomorrow morning! cant wait :D haha

Nice let us know how you like it.

Very interested in impressions as well.

 

Specifically for those that have them or are soon to have them, can you give an impression on the ear cup size?  Are they comfortably circumaural, or (as I believe I read somewhere) are they smallish and for some ears may sit on the ear?  It's really tough to gauge from the pictures.

 

Thanks

Listened to these at the IT show in Singapore yesterday. The place was pretty crowded so I only auditioned it with around one and a half songs. Warm signature while not sounding at all muddy. But the big thing that caught my attention was that there was distortion and rattle in the left driver that I've never noticed on that particular song on my DT880s. I asked the staff there how long the demo had been used and he told me barely a day. I sure hope that's a faulty unit or that it lets me hear more details than my current HPs or IEMs. Also noticed the lack of a strain relief on the 3.5mm jack

Just got notice of shipment for my pair from Music Direct. I should have them Monday.

Cool. I am anxious to hear opinions on these as I am very intrigued by them. I get the feeling that these are going to be different.

I am intrigued as well. Focal is typically mostly highs and mids, but this being a sealed headphone there is an environment friendly to bass.

subscribed

phew! nearly overslept and didn't open the door for the post man :P anyway my headphones just arrived! have been listening to them for 15 minutes, and here is my personal opinion at the moment (i am not a massive audiophile or anything, i am just a guy who use B&W p5, bose qc3, UE Tri 10 pro, Focal xs 2.1, Focal xs book, i am not too familiar with the terms that you all always use, so please correct me if i say something wrong!)

 

Comfort:

 

i find these super comfortable, the memory foam ear pads are amazing! definitely the most comfortable headphones i have ever put on, it's even more comfortable than the qc3!! I have quite small ears, so the earpads completely cover my ears and sit around my ears nice, not too tight, but not too loose!

 

the dimension of the earpads:

length:

from the outside bottom to outside top is around 10.5cm

from the inside bottom to inside top is around 7.5cm

width:

from the outside left to outside right is around 9cm

from the inside left to inside right is around 6cm

 

Build:

 

i personally find them quite plastic-ish, quite different to what i have expected... just by holding it doesn't make u think that they are headphones that are being sold at £199, but they definitely doesn't feel as cheap as Beats headphones, just comparing to the p5 and bose qc3, it feels cheap-ish

i really like the cable though! it's wrapped around cloth, so it feels like it should last a long long time!

 

Sound Quality:

 

hm... well i listened to a couple of different songs, And I am not telling you i am not going by Jennifer Hudson, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano and violin), Rolling in the deep by Adele, No More Gas by DJ earworm, River Flows in you by Yiruma (piano), from my experience with these headphones up till now, they don't have a strong deep bass, but the bass sounds really controlled, even at a low note, you can hear a note being played very crisp, not just a muddy BOOM BOOM BOOM, and at not a high volume (around 5 blocks on a macbook pro) you will feel like you have a subwoover on each side of your ears giving you that pump feeling thing (don't know the right term, but like when u turn ur music up, and put your hand right outside of the hole of the subwooverur u will feel like the subwoover is pumping out air according to the beat of the song) and i personally quite like this

 

the mid and vocal are very nice :) i like how when u listen to songs by powerful singer like Adele, Jennifer Hudson, Whitney Houston, you really can feel the power behind their voice, it's really nice and clear that you can hear how each of their notes end (what i am trying to say is that after u sing a note, the notes / single part of it will fade out? that part? like the after taste you get after eating something that has a strong taste / drinking wine, but hearing? :S sorry if i m confusing you guys) another thing i noticed with these headphones is that when i was listening to the man who can't be moved by the script, you can sort of hear the guitar amp in the sense that u will feel like u are in a band room listening to them jamming, and the sound that a guitar amp makes sometime??

 

highs are mostly controlled, yet sometimes when the vocal hit a high note or the when the hi hat in the drum kit is being played half openly by the drummer, the sound does get distort (not sure this is the right term, but like the sound just not compact enough to sound like real life, and it kinda cracks a lil?) but this problem may due to the headphones are not burned-in or because all my music are 320kbps at best? :S so with a loseless music, it probably will sound much better??

 

soundstage:

 

i really like in most of the songs that i have listened to, you can tell where everything is? especially the ones with just the instruments (Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yiruma's songs) when the they are on the piano, it actually makes u feel like u are in the room with that grand piano in front of you, you will hear all the high notes on your right, and all the lower notes to your left, exactly how it sounds like when you play a piano! and even with songs that are more complex, you can still hear where the singer is standing at, where the instruments are located at most of the time? instead of just music playing at the same place? so that's really cool

 

another feeling i get with these headphones is that they don't make me feel like i am listening to a music in a closed space, it makes me feel like i m listening to music in a big spacey room, not congested at all, everything just fit there nice and tight!

 

one more thing!! with these headphones, i think it is much much better with loseless music than compressed ones like 320 kbps / 256 kbps, etc etc although overall, it makes my listening experience much better, but if your music is not loseless, these headphones will really pick up the bad parts of it! there are some songs in my library that i used to think they are great quality, but under these headphones, i really can tell that they were compressed pretty badly lol but yea...

 

hm... i guess that's it! haha overall i am really happy with my purchase, i find it a great upgrade from B&W P5 and Bose QC3, it doesn't have that covered/muddy sound of the QC3, and it definitely gives you that punchy feeling that you dont get with the P5, just much better!!!!! but again please keep in mind i m just a random guy who is not really experienced with high end headphones and do not listen to loseless music :p but yea i will update with you all if i have any new findings with these headphones!!!

 

btw i would like to ask if anyone can provide me tracks or anything that the purpose is for burning in the headphones??

 

sorry for the bad english, and hope you guys won't find this just a waste of time :P