Aren't everything else?

Go get yourself a pair of Diablo Utopia then? Those sound amazing, with the right gear, of course.

I do believe USB cable makes a difference in sound quality. However, I remember reading quite a few audio reviews of certain USB cables where the reviewer talks about how one USB cable gives bass more heft, or has better treble extension. Now that is just ridiculous. USB cable does not change...

So how does your HD800S sound after those EQ settings are applied? I'm a bit wary about using test tones to tune by ear. Those linear sweeps were meant for test equipment (microphone and analyzers), not for human hearing.

Hey price hasn't been announced yet, right? I have a strong feeling that these won't be much more expensive than what the Elear goes for these days. And I suspect something coming out next year, this time with beryllium driver, which is what would fill the big gap between Elear and Utopia.

I would bet this will not cost 1k more than the Elear. :)

Yes the black paint is supposed to make it "dark". LOL. Seriously now, the added euphonic distortion has surely been dialed in by tweaking the driver itself.

If you want to hear the difference between MP3 (lossy compression) and WAV (uncompressed) or FLAC (lossless compression), focus on the treble. And use test music that have complex instrumentation going on. Upon compression, when the bits are no longer enough to represent the full waveform...

Hey, how would you compare the sound of the Mojo alone (as DAC+amp) versus Mojo as DAC + Burson as amp?

I like the gray/silver on the Focal Clear, much like I prefer the silver on the HD800 to the black on the HD800S. I don't see silver/gray as "cheap" looking, in fact it's quite the opposite. I like the more modern look.

Why do USB cables make such a difference? It's pretty simple, really. Because your brain tells you so. There you have it. No rocket science needed. Now if you just bought an expensive "high-end" USB cable, and your brain tells you that it makes an improvement in the sound of your system...

A good plot twist would be if Clear suddenly turns out to be closed back, with fake "open" grille hiding a sealed cup underneath. LOL. But then you'll have to decide between the "C" and the "D".

Why not we just all agree on something... that the Focal Clear is a such a beauty. BTW, don't ask who my source is, but I've been informed that the Clear definitely has a "flavored" sound. And I got a feeling that is not far from the truth.

I think I know what auditory masking you're referring to. I simply think that clarity can also be degraded by the presence of distortion among other things, frequency domain masking included. So really in terms of clarity, I'm more wary of the former (amount of distortion) which is an...

Clear vs. Utopia is such a good dilemma that I'd like to have anytime. :)

For loudspeakers I also like flat (as measured) FR as a baseline. For headphones, it's a lot more complicated than that, since a perfectly "flat" FR would sound like listening to speakers in an anechoic chamber, because there is no "room" for the sound to interact with. Nobody in the industry...

Sennheiser IE800 (dynamic driver) might match the "for small ears" part of the requirement. One of the most comfortable, smallest, and most lightweight IEMs. It's excellent in the sound department, too. It's not the most exotic IEM out there, but it's one of the best sounding IMHO. Plus it...

plus... "spot-on" tonality is also relative. Who's to say that Utopia is not "spot on" with some music material out there? So for those tracks, would the Clear be too dark? You see, such question is difficult to answer in absolute terms because recordings don't all sound "spot-on". :) In...

Thanks for the responses so far. The good thing about great headphones is that many of them already have fairly good tonal balance to begin with. So that makes it easy for me to instead focus on the characteristics that matter more to me. I beg to disagree that the criteria that I listed...

It's funny how it's named the same as Cardas Clear headphone cables that look very similar to the gray cables of the Focal Clear.

This is my first thread here, and I figured I'll just share what the concept of "ideal" headphone really means to me. Let me start by straight away saying that absolute tonal neutrality of playback equipment is at the very bottom of my priority list. I noticed that a typical audio equipment...

Seems like they have designed the Clear to be at least "transportable".

If one pleads guilty to being an "audiophile", then the concept of endgame remains just that, a concept. It never gets attained. Exploring different audio gear is, admit it or not, at the core of this hobby, So as long as there are new products being introduced every time, and as technology...

If I owned an HE-1, I would never be bored and just keep enjoying music through it. I can't imagine myself spending any time comparing it with other headphones instead of just relaxing and listening in bliss. :)