I would call Clear a fun headphone for various music genres because I liked listening to pop music with it. It's bright sounding without being harsh. Or vivid. Response is definitely toward neutral. I'm into clear sounding headphones, and Clear fits the bill. It's got a response you can't dislike, and certainly won't find any weirdness with the response. I don't like warmth or hazy, or bass crazy. At the right price I would snag one as it's a headphone I'd keep around and put to use.
Uuh, if I am not mistaken, the Harman curve was designed with the FR of human hearing taken into account. Our ears do not have a linear frequency response. We are far more sensitive to the 1-4 kHz region compared to the bass or extreme treble region. Reason: human speech occurs in that frequency range. These differences get even stronger at low volumes: the reason why bass seems to disappear when you listen quietly. Test it for y ourself: design a frequency sweep, 30Hz -> 15KHz at a constant volume. Measure the output of your speaker with an SPL meter and listen. You will hear far more differences in volume than the SPL meter would indicate. That's your ears FR you hear.
I don't think equal-loudness contour has much to do with it. The original Harman curve was designed to account for the way in which the sound from a flat-FR speaker gets deformed by the time it reaches your eardrum due to the interaction with your outer ear, head/neck/torso, and the room (when the room is a good but imperfect listening chamber). Sean Olive predicted that the curve obtained from those measurements would align with people's preferences. Later experiments to determine preferences confirmed his hypothesis - Harman is the average preference (regardless of whether we're talking about trained or untrained listeners). I suppose the preference experiments are what caused the revisions to the curve, but the revisions were slight.
I just got my Focal Clears in and all I can say is "Wow!" It's neutral yet inviting at the same time. And this was on laptop built-in sound from Youtube! Can't wait to really try it out at home on my normal rig.
i've been meaning to give the clear a listen for some time. so i took the opportunity to do it and compare it to the utopia (which i own) while i was visiting my local headphone dealer today. it was only a brief comparison but the differences in presentations were apparent to me. i found the clear to be a pleasant and coherent sounding headphone. switching to the utopia, i immediately noticed an increase in clarity, resolution and treble extension. that's about it.
Hi, if you were to choose an IEM with a sound signature as close as possible to Clear, which brand/model would you choose? Some flexibility in price but trying to keep it under $1500
I would give the campfire Solaris a try. I found them similar to the clearance when I had them. I sold my Solaris a month ago. They didn't get much use I only use iems when traveling or at bed time. The Khan got most of the use.
Thanks. Isn’t Solaris very sensible and susceptible to hiss in some amplifications? I ask since I own iBasso DX220 and the tube AMP9 and AFAIR some people reported hiss with CF Solaris, maybe I am wrong.
I'm looking into upgrading from the HD650 to the Clear, but I work in a cubicle. Do the Clears leak more sound than the 650s? When I get self conscious and ask my cube neighbors if they can hear anything, they tell me no. At some point, I will end up using these when I have a home with decent space for a listening area, but until then, I do the bulk of my serious listening at work. That's another reason why I'm not just looking into something closed like the Elex. I'd be pairing them with an Oppo HA-2 and Dragonfly 1.2; I'm looking into the FiiO K5 Pro to replace the old DF. I'll have to save a bit until I get something with a balanced output.
I've both, both leak practically the same, the Clear can be listened at lower levels while retaining a balanced sound, they kind of isolate quite a bit in the low region, for an open headphone.
