SureSh0t
New Head-Fier
Cleer, a small US based company focused on designing slightly premium casual listening headphones while using Chinese OEM manufacturing, came out swinging at the Canjam 2017 tour. Their new flagship dynamic driver headphone was announced as taking aim at the HD800 in performance for a lower price. At that time it was in a prototype state and Cleer was showing off the sleek BMW Designworks contracted design to attendees and getting their feedback. Aside from a few mentions the Next didn't get much press despite Cleer's claims and it's good looks. It was enough to win a Good Design Award followed by a spot in the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. But Cleer said it would delay for work on final adjustments before launch and launch it did, quietly, with zero press or fanfare almost a year later.
Upon first listen you might not understand why. It's vocal clarity, solid bass, surprising detail and competent soundstage might wow you a bit, but after a while or during certain tracks you begin to notice issues. Female voices have a certain metallic shimmer, the subbass lacks a little definition, there's something in the treble fatiguing you which you can't quite put your finger on. You want to love it but it's not quite right.
Build: There is nothing about the housing that seems flimsy and every element seems tight and seamless to the extent it feels like a piece of sculpture as much as a headphone. The headband and deep earpads are real, supple leather well stitched with no signs of looseness or mistakes. The machining of the aluminum frame is extravagant to a frankly silly extent. Every curve and edge seems to receive great attention with no signs of rough finishing anywhere. Even if you don't like how it sounds the Next will look great on your stand.
Comfort: The pads are deep, chonky, soft leather filled with firm foam. Unless you're an Obama or elephant hybrid your ears will probably never touch the pads. The cups swivel and tilt a fair amount such that almost any head shape should be accommodated. The headband is nice and broad but oddly the padding on the underside is somewhat thin and if it sits in the wrong spot it might cause some discomfort after an hour or two. Perhaps a future job for Vesper Audio. Clamp is adequate, maybe a little soft for my preference of secure fit, but if you don't move too much it should be fine.
Bass: Response wise it is in a very nice spot, slightly elevated with very good extension all the way to 20Hz. Goldilocks bass if you will. It is missing that extra bit of subbass slam and dynamics you might find on an excellent planar or what I get from my MDR-EX1000. But for a fullsize dynamic is very impressive.
Mids: Unremarkable, and frankly that is a good thing. While voices and airy passages sound subtly metallic, the mids seem natural and unaffected. There might be a very slight shout at 2k but I find reducing it by anything more than 2dB is too much. I'm just very sensitive to anything off balance in the 1k-3k region. Lower mids just a tad warm maybe because of the extended bass shelf but there is no interference from bass in mid clarity.
Treble: Very large emphasis on female vocals. Allie X sounds incredible. It might be just a little too much but the detail, or at least the lack of grain, means there's little downside to the extra bit of liveliness in voices. However the main problems with this headphone arise: treble peaks and metallic timbre. The aluminum housing and the treble spikes add a subtle shimmer or echoing pipe effect. Sometimes this is pleasing if it fits the music but I imagine this would not be as germane to a country ballad singer as a trance vocal. This can be somewhat alleviated with EQ but the peaks are very narrow and sharp and can be difficult to locate without doing sine sweeps.
Overall the Next clearly (rimshot) falls short of it's bold promise. Interestingly it's price, driver design and sound signature makes it a more natural competitor of the Elex, of which it has features and perhaps build quality beat. Although Cleer probably cannot match the level of product support. How did this dark horse trip so hard before the finish line?
Looking at the inside courtesy of takato14, Cleer's ambitions and follies are made apparent.
A Mr. Memers Precision Treble Attenuator behind the pads and a magnesium coated dome deeply seated within a surround for maximum excursion much like a Focal driver you might find in an Elex or Clear.
The driver is promising and explains the uncanny bass extension for a dynamic but the gaudy plastic waveguide/shroud was a portent of some design hell sealed away, a capstone over the troubled story of a passion project ala Ford vs Ferrari that ends somewhere between winning Le Mans and Icarus falling from the sky.
Behind this (no pictures, sorry) it is evident a somewhat frantic effort was made to damp this driver with a VERY powerful magnet assembly (enough to hold the entire headphone together without screws and take measurements) in a resonant/reflective housing. The copious felt lining the back of the housing explains the surprising amount of isolation for an open back. It also explains the extended shelf of distortion in the bass range that, while at or below 1% is somewhat concerning for the performance of the driver and lead Tak to suspect it was overdamped. After removing some felt and strategically placing Twiron, overall THD in the bass was reduced except for a slight bloom of 2nd order around 300Hz. (Full disclosure the scale was changed slightly between graphs but it should still be apparent.)
Stock
Modded
Extended resonances are reduced/eliminated, the 4k peak on at least one side is killed and it appears some cancellations/echoes in the upper treble are reduced. My overall impression was that dynamics, especially in the bass, were improved. Timbre seemed far less metallic and listening is comfortable enough that I haven't felt the need to use equalization since. Resonance in the bass got a little more jumpy (as you can see in the CSD and impulse response) but wasn't noticeable and I'm more than willing to take it for the audible improvements.
Next is a remarkably interesting headphone for something claiming to copy an HD800 and being yet another dynamic driver. Despite all these idiosyncrasies that I've laid out, it actually sounds pretty damn good. It hits a lot of my preference marks for bass and vocals, has some correctable flaws and is very well made in some key respects. It enables me to have something that sounds good from a headphone that (at least until now) few know about and isn't another one of the cans everyone has or lusts after. Which is neat.
All credit to takato14 for investigating and modifying the internals.
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