First of all thank you to Todd and TTVJ for sponsoring this loaner tour.
I've primarily been an open-back headphone guy, but I've been growing curious about what the newer products in the closed-back market have to offer. Spending time with the Celestee impressed me in many ways while at the same time confirming some of my reservations about closed-back headphones.
Build/Styling/Packaging/Accessories
I'll start with one of the best things about the Celestee - it's possibly the best looking headphone I've seen, with striking styling in various shades of blue with copper accents. Opening the stylish travel case (that's reminiscent of a high end purse) you're immediately greeted by the smell of high quality leather used in the pads and the headband. Picking the headphones up they're surprisingly light but feel sturdy and well made. I didn't hear any creaking or rattling during my time with them.
The included cable, while very short, is in a matching shade of blue with the copper accents and is very flexible with no cable memory effects that I noticed. The pads are quite soft and have enough room for my ears that they were never irritated rubbing against the insides of the pads. The pads are a hybrid design with leather covering the outside and areas that touch your face, and a cloth ring on the inside. The driver is covered with a copper-colored metal grill that matches the accents on the outside of the headphone and features a foam ring surrounding it, likely to help reduce reflections inside the cup. You can also see Focal's Aluminum-Magnesium 'M Shaped Dome' driver through the metal shield, which is constructed more like the driver in a speaker, with a rigid cone and a rubber surround, as opposed to typical headphone drivers that have tiny mylar domes surrounded by large plastic surrounds. This speaker-like driver seems to be a major contributor to Focal's ability to make headphones with excellent dynamic punch.
On the outside of the cups there's a perforated metal shell around what appears to be leather, and a center-cap featuring the Focal logo which is used as an air-pressure relief vent to prevent pressure buildup when putting the headphones on.
Although it's somewhat difficult to see in photos, the Celestee makes use of several shades of blue, from the deep navy on the rings around the cups, an almost-navy on the cups themselves, to a lighter cobalt or royal blue used in the yokes, accents, and pads.
All in all Focal absolutely nailed the styling on the Celestee as a luxury product. This is a headphone that wouldn't look out of place sitting on a table top in a Beverly Hills mansion.
Sound
Overall I'd describe that sound of these as very clear, focused, and fulfilling. Perhaps my biggest praise for them is that I did not feel the need to apply any EQ to them while listening during my time with them, something that doesn't happen very often with headphones.
Bass
Bass extension is deep with solid performance even in the sub-bass. While it's not Audeze LCD level in its ability to dig into the subterranean frequencies, it holds its own and never felt unfulfilling even on tracks that require solid bass performance. There's a very slight midbass bump, but it ends up being just enough to give them a bit of kick without making them sound warm or muddy.
Whether electronic bass such as in Yello's
The Expert, Bass Guitar such as in Steely Dan's
Negative Girl, or Orchestral Bass such as in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's
Russian Easter Overture, the bass was always quick, punchy when called for, and well defined with excellent timbre and clean delineation between the notes.
Midrange
The Celestee has a small dip in the lower midrange which works to to cleanly separate the bass from the midrange and helps aid in focus for vocals. Upper-Midrange is one of the most important aspects of headphone performance for me as I listen to a lot of female-vocal focused music, and the Celestee performs very well in that regard, holding close to the Harman Curve up through 3Khz, with some drop-off after that (a little more energy up through 5khz would be welcome, but it gets the majority right).
Vocals are forward, with dead-center presentation, and the timbre has enough bite and brilliance to give the upper vocal harmonics some emphasis. Male vocals are also well presented, and without any chestiness or excessive resonance. Detail retrieval in the midrange struck me as well above average, with details in vocal inflection, breath, vibrato and resonance, etc, all being quite audible.
Selected midrange/vocal test tracks included: Alison Krauss & Union Station -
Gravity, Solji -
Please, IU -
Strawberry Moon, Willie Nelson -
Stardust
Treble
Treble performance on headphones has never been a big priority of mine - as long as it isn't piercing or completely dead up there I'm OK with it. The Celestee performs completely acceptably in the treble range, nothing stands out to me as good or bad, which is a good thing in my book, the treble exists, there's some air up there, but it doesn't ever make itself center-stage or try to steal the show.
Treble test tracks: Vivaldi -
The Four Seasons: Summer III - Presto, Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the
Common Man
Soundstage and Imaging
Typically areas that are hard for closed-back headphones to perform well in, and the Celestee hits and misses here. Imaging is acceptable, very good even for a closed back, but not close to top of the pack when open backed headphones are considered. I believe the challenge comes from the rather narrow soundstage - it's hard to define a clear image when the soundstage itself is rather small.
I'm not one that cares about a super-wide soundstage, so that's fine for me personally for most music. Pop, rock, acoustic, ballads, etc, all work well within the small soundstage, they sound focused and detailed. Listening to large orchestral works and classical is where it falls apart in terms of soundstage and imaging. While those genres are tough for headphones in general, the Celestee underperforms open backs and many other closed backs when it comes to painting a realistic picture of scale and position when listening to symphonies.
Source Pairings
My main setup is a BlueSound Node 2i fed with Apple Music Lossless and FLAC files on USB stick through an RME ADI-2 DAC and a Schiit Ragnarok 2 amplifier. This setup worked very well (aside from the need for an extension cable) and easily powered the Celestees.
Since this is a closed-back, which seems to indicate that it would be intended for mobile/public use, I also decided to test it out using my iPad Pro M1 with the Apple USB-C to 3.5mm headphone dongle. Surprisingly, I could not hear any difference with the Celestees using this setup compared to my primary one. The Celestee appears to be an extremely efficient headphone, and even using the rather low-powered output of the Apple Dongle there was more than enough volume range on the Celestee, and bass extension and impact did not suffer. This is a headphone that can easily be driven by portable sources.
Quibbles
While I found the Celestee to be a delight overall, there are some areas I could see room for improvement on. The cable is extremely short, which is fine for a product that will be used 'on the go' but is not great for home use, or even office use if you have a large desk and need to roll around a lot. Some Focal headphones come with multiple cables, and at a nearly $1,000 MSRP, Focal could have and should have included a 3m cable along with the shorter one for portable use. There were also instances where I could hear a resonance in the upper-bass range, likely some reflection inside of the cups. Some of that is unavoidable with a closed back headphone of course, and I'm not sure what Focal could do to fix that. The adjustment range of the headphones are also on the smaller size. I was able to get a good fit, but I was on the second-to-last click on the adjustment rods to do so, those with heads larger than mine may face some difficulties.
Comparisons
Beyerdynamic DT177X
Perhaps not a fair comparison given that the Beyerdynamic is a much cheaper headphone, but it's one that I had on hand and could do AB testing so I gave it a go. While the Beyerdynamic is built well in a utilitarian kind of way, it doesn't come close to the Focal in terms of style or luxury quality of materials used. The DT177X feels like it could survive being thrown into a backpack without a case, something I wouldn't do with the Focal, but it's not nearly as pretty and doesn't feel as special in the hands.
In terms of sound quality the Beyerdynamic lacks the upper-midrange extension and detail found in the Celestee, it sounds a bit more dead in that region in comparison, and also has more subdued treble. While the DT177X has copious amounts of bass, the bass on the Focal is more detailed, more defined, with considerably better texture and timbre, the DT177X coming off as a bit more 'one note' in comparison.
Audeze EL8 Titanium
An out-of-production model, but another I had on hand. Build quality on the Audeze is excellent as it is on the Celestee, though style-wise the Focal still wins. The Audeze outperforms the Celestee on bass impact and a tad on sub-bass rumble, and the two are matched well when it comes to midrange performance, with the Audeze perhaps having a bit more going on in the top of the upper-midrange/lower-treble region, and sounding just a bit thinner.
The Celestee does win from a comfort perspective, with the EL8's pads not breathing nearly as well as the Celestee's, and with the Audeze being prone to an annoying crinkle sound from the drivers when you move your head.
Dan Clark Audio Ether CX
This is one I tested quite a while ago, so I am going by memory. The Ether CX was a headphone that absolutely required EQ for me - the bass was way too anemic without it, but it did have a beautiful midrange presentation, and excellent build quality, though going for a more tech-focused look with carbon fiber and exposed headband wire than Focal's Paris Fashion Week approach.
Both are extremely comfortable headphones, and though DCA uses faux-leather in their pads, it's faux-leather of an incredibly high quality that feels better than the real leather used in some brands.
While matched (from memory) in midrange performance, the Celestee pulls ahead again in terms of bass quality, with the Ether CX falling victim to a bit of 'one note syndrome' when the bass is boosted to an acceptable level.
Focal Elex
While this a bit of an apples/oranges comparison considering the Elex is an open back, it's the only Focal headphone that I own (it's actually an Elear with Elex pads, but measurements have shown that's really all an Elex is - an Elear with cosmetic differences and Elex pads), and it's positioned in the same point of Focal's lineup as their entry-level open back.
It could be because my Elear/Elex is a bit older, but it creaks quite a bit, something the Celestee never did. Style-wise I think the Celestee is a clear winner as well, much nicer to look at than the Black/Chrome on the Elear/Elex.
When it comes to sound though, the Celestee falls short compared to its open-back brother. The Elex has considerably more dynamic impact (I'm guessing there's some mechanical air damping happening inside the Celestee), a much more open soundstage, more precise imaging, and doesn't seem to lose anything when it comes to bass performance.
This brings me to....
Conclusions
Who is the Celestee for? It's a beautiful high quality luxury product with excellent sound for a closed back, falling short in a few small areas, but outperforming the competition in many more. While sound isolation is good, I don't know how well it would fare on a plane compared to an ANC headphone (though the sound quality is quite a bit better than any ANC headphone I've heard). For home use an open back would provide better performance, provided you have a quiet space away from people.
Therefore I'm thinking the target is office use, perhaps use in bed next to a partner doing something else, or perhaps a commute on public transportation. Since they can run very well off of even low-powered sources they're quite versatile with what they can be driven from, making them excellent potential road-warrior headphones. Since the case is quite compact it may even make sense for someone to take two sets of headphones on a trip - some Bose or Sony ANCs for the plane ride, and the Celestee for when you get to your destination, the isolation is quite suitable at blocking out AC noise, so should be great for hotel rooms.
I enjoyed my time with the Celestee, and in a final reckoning I'd say they're absolutely worth the price, especially if design and luxury materials are priorities of yours, and you need a closed back headphone.
