[dontfeedphils]

That's a new concept to me, that different production periods of the same headphone can produce different sounding headphones. Has this been proven? or just assumed?

It's been repeated a couple times but I'm not sure where this is coming from.

 

[roskodan]

@JerryHead Unfortunately, it's seems it happened to Utopia, at what degree of magnitude, it's hard to tell. www.innerfidelity.com/content/focal-utopia-update

 

[JerryHead]

@JerryHead Unfortunately, it's seems it happened to Utopia, at what degree of magnitude, it's hard to tell. www.innerfidelity.com/content/focal-utopia-update

Interesting. Looks like there were alternate explanations however besides inconsistencies in production.

 

[JerryHead]

What about a generic no-name upgraded cable like this one on eBay? About a 1/3rd the price of the top Dragon cable. Anyone have any experience with these? Would they be about 1/3rd the quality of the Dragons in term of performance?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/8Core-OCC-...784367&hash=item3d8aa5a4d8:g:xJAAAOSwOLFc12bU

 

[Swisshead]

I have ordered this last week. Hope it will be OK.

https://lqicables.com/products/esprit-up-occ-silver-plated-copper

 

[roskodan]

@JerryHead Yes, I doubt Focal could have any problem with consistency. It must have been a deliberate change, for whatever reason. And that was the Utopia. As I said, I cannot understand, from my experience with the Clear, how it could be perceived as metallic sounding. I read that angled drivers can accentuate high frequencies for some people, because it sends the sound waves more to the back of the earlobe, instead of straight into the ear canal (e.g. HD650).

 

[DaYooper]

I have ordered this last week. Hope it will be OK.

https://lqicables.com/products/esprit-up-occ-silver-plated-copper

I use a variety of Lqicables and have no problem with them. However, I never really believed in cable snake oil. It would take a really bad cable to demo that to me.

 

[JerryHead]

I have ordered this last week. Hope it will be OK.

https://lqicables.com/products/esprit-up-occ-silver-plated-copper

Cool. Which termination did you choose? XLR? 4.4? Would you mind reporting back and let us know what you thought of this cable in terms of any improvement over stock cable? Thanks.

 

[JerryHead]

I use a variety of Lqicables and have no problem with them. However, I never really believed in cable snake oil. It would take a really bad cable to demo that to me.

I see, so you never really noticed any differences between your Lqi cables and the stock cables in terms of SQ?

 

[Swisshead]

This is my order, should come next week.

 

[JerryHead]

This is my order, should come next week.

nice, yes, please report back with your opinion.

 

[Swisshead]

Yes i do!

 

[Nostoi]

This is my order, should come next week.

Curious to know how it pans out (and also roughly what - if any - customs fee there is)

 

[Swisshead]

Rechne so mit ca. 15 CHF Zoll- und MWSt Kosten. Porto ist relativ teuer, aber in der Schweiz kriegt man keine vernünftigen Kabel oder nur 500 aufwärts und das zahle ich nicht. Bei uns ist wenigstens MWSt billiger wie bei euch!

 

[drews]

I see, so the TA wouldn't be your first choice for an amp for these? I thought possibly the warmer, darker sound of the TA would offset the brighter sound of the Clears no?

This is definitely true, when I got my Clear Pros I suspected that they were tuned differently from the standard Clears since they were warm and almost bassy which was not how they are typically described... After switching to my ADI-2+THX 789 I understood it was the amp (I actually prefer to use my TA with these).