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Focal Clear headphones
Nov 26, 2020 at 5:24 AM Post #8,222 of 12,607
Koren said:
I received this message today from the headphones department at thomann.de. I asked them if there is a difference between Clear and Clear Professional, this answer came: Dear Customer,

Thank you for your request. The Focal Clear offers a HiFi sound for listening to music. The Professional Model is more neutral and is used in a studio for mixing mastering. If there are further questions, do not hesitate to contact us! well now my question is that there are a lot of stupid people on the internet who haven’t even heard of the two and just say the same two or Focal is lying as a company And hiding information that the professional model was built or tuned differently.
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Why would Focal lie about them being the same sound signature? If they were actually different signatures, then they could leverage market segmentation to sell more headphones.
 
Nov 26, 2020 at 6:00 AM Post #8,223 of 12,607
Hi all. Big shout out to previously recommended Sky Audio Cables. Got the 4.4mm cable to run Clears out of my Sony zx507.
054F3F9C-752C-4AC5-BD3D-4E59A7986892.jpeg
 
Nov 26, 2020 at 7:08 AM Post #8,224 of 12,607
Nov 26, 2020 at 7:18 AM Post #8,225 of 12,607
surfgeorge said:
I did, but I preferred the Clears so much that I quickly moved on from the T1 and listened to other headphones. This happened so quickly that I have no memory of the T1's signature and characteristics. To me the Clear was in a different league.
Described that session a little more here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread.831345/post-15974430
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yes, I would agree to it. When I was looking for a new headphone I checked from Beyerdynamic the T1, 1990, 1970 and the cheaper 990. Personally I would have preferred the 1990 from the Beyer's. The T1 is very bright, like the Sennheiser HD800(s) but has more punch than the famous Sennheiser. But some people like that "Beyer peak" apparently. But indeed, the Clear sounded more balanced to me, without that sharp peak, good punch and clear mids. Some claiming the Beyer would have a wider soundstage. When I tested I did not recognized that but did not listen to classic music, pop and rock only. .
 
Nov 26, 2020 at 8:52 AM Post #8,226 of 12,607
Koren said:
I received this message today from the headphones department at thomann.de. I asked them if there is a difference between Clear and Clear Professional, this answer came: Dear Customer,

Thank you for your request. The Focal Clear offers a HiFi sound for listening to music. The Professional Model is more neutral and is used in a studio for mixing mastering. If there are further questions, do not hesitate to contact us! well now my question is that there are a lot of stupid people on the internet who haven’t even heard of the two and just say the same two or Focal is lying as a company And hiding information that the professional model was built or tuned differently.
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This is just not correct. Soundwise, the Clear and Clear Pro are identical.
 
Nov 26, 2020 at 9:44 AM Post #8,227 of 12,607
Superpong said:
Does anyone try or compare Clear with Beyerdynamic T1 3rd generation?
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Not 3rd gen, but heard 2nd gen and I found it to pretty mediocre. There a treble emphasis with warm thick mids (which I really disliked), with the usual Beyer upper mids recession. This causes a funny response I couldn't ignore. Looking at the 3rd gen measurements it doesn't look much different.

Clear is a totally different headphone. Much better clarity with more of an emphasis in the upper-mids. Clear just sound quite neutral in comparison. For me at least, Clear is one of the most engaging headphone I've heard. Sounds like how I prefer music to be expressed. However, sound stage isn't big and not the most realistic timbre for certain recordings. I mainly like to listen to modern or electronic with it. It presents such genre so well to be highly engaging. So, it's more of a fun headphone for me.

Outside wonky sounds I dislike, there are headphone I like for different genres. D9200 is damn good for bass music. I've never heard hiphop like how the bass come out of that headphone. It's like you didn't know that kind of bass was there.

Both what I consider fun headphones. Because both are engaging for different reasons.
 
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Nov 26, 2020 at 10:37 PM Post #8,229 of 12,607
surfgeorge said:
Good to hear an alternative opinion.
Soundstage size is known to be limited on the Clear, everyone agrees. Even the excellent Chord DACs can't create an HD800 like soundstage with the Clears. The outstanding feature of the Clears for my ears is the coherence, balance, clarity and natural dynamics.
But the limited soundstage can also work to its advantage. Listening to opera for example, the Clear keeps the vocals closer, easier to follow, than the HD800S. Or playing Amber Rubarth it feels like sitting in the first row. But maybe I'll add a Hifiman Arya to my setup one day for the bigger stage and better transparency.
It's alwas a compromise and if you found one that works better for you for less money, great for you! I would have loved to save money on this purchase, but nothing I could get my hands on beat the Clears at the current price level. If the Arya and HD800S would have sold for the same price I'd have considered them but the Clears would have still come out on top I think.
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For sure the Clear's intimate stage can work better if you're one that likes to have the voices closer to you. I certainly prefer such a stage for a lot of the songs I listen to. I think I may be the only one on this, but I find the Clear's center stage a bit baffling in that there seems to be holes in weird places - making the center stage not as coherent. A bit odd since I don't hear such a flaw in any other headphones I've tried. But again, I seem to be the only one or among the very few that experienced this.

Another thing I didn't mention above is that one of the reasons I sold the Clear was because it triggers my treble sensitivities pretty easily, so I tend to listen to lower volumes with it and became a trade-off. This may seem like I'm dissing the Clear, but really these are my own nitpicks of it. And one should really nitpick a headphone costing over a thousand dollars. I'm not one to settle on the flaws like I was buying something mid-tier in the $500 range. However, it's still a headphone tonality that I can recommend to most people, if you're looking at the used market :)
 
Nov 27, 2020 at 3:54 AM Post #8,230 of 12,607
descloud said:
For sure the Clear's intimate stage can work better if you're one that likes to have the voices closer to you. I certainly prefer such a stage for a lot of the songs I listen to. I think I may be the only one on this, but I find the Clear's center stage a bit baffling in that there seems to be holes in weird places - making the center stage not as coherent. A bit odd since I don't hear such a flaw in any other headphones I've tried. But again, I seem to be the only one or among the very few that experienced this.

Another thing I didn't mention above is that one of the reasons I sold the Clear was because it triggers my treble sensitivities pretty easily, so I tend to listen to lower volumes with it and became a trade-off. This may seem like I'm dissing the Clear, but really these are my own nitpicks of it. And one should really nitpick a headphone costing over a thousand dollars. I'm not one to settle on the flaws like I was buying something mid-tier in the $500 range. However, it's still a headphone tonality that I can recommend to most people, if you're looking at the used market :)
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Starting to wonder if your sample was defective. I've been listening to some tracks with a lot of soundstage and imaging challenges, and the Clears performed very well.
This album shows really good depth, width and imaging precision:
https://tidal.com/browse/album/36067757
And this track gives me goose bumps!
https://tidal.com/browse/track/15666682
Or this, the sound of the pencil on paper, panning smoothly from one side to another - very realistic and no holes in the soundstage.
https://tidal.com/browse/track/15666684

Treble sensitivity is a more personal preference issue, but for me the Clears hit the sweet spot perfectly to make them really good with anything I listen to, for classical I even experimented with a moderate treble boost PEQ and liked it. But I am sure they'd be very revealing of any issues with recordings.

Source: CHORD Hugo 2
 
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Nov 27, 2020 at 8:06 AM Post #8,231 of 12,607
surfgeorge said:
Starting to wonder if your sample was defective. I've been listening to some tracks with a lot of soundstage and imaging challenges, and the Clears performed very well.
This album shows really good depth, width and imaging precision:
https://tidal.com/browse/album/36067757
And this track gives me goose bumps!
https://tidal.com/browse/track/15666682
Or this, the sound of the pencil on paper, panning smoothly from one side to another - very realistic and no holes in the soundstage.
https://tidal.com/browse/track/15666684

Treble sensitivity is a more personal preference issue, but for me the Clears hit the sweet spot perfectly to make them really good with anything I listen to, for classical I even experimented with a moderate treble boost PEQ and liked it. But I am sure they'd be very revealing of any issues with recordings.

Source: CHORD Hugo 2
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Yosi Horikawa is mastering guru, many of his songs sounds amazing even on low tier equipment. In my case sometimes they are a bit too revealing as with many recordings I can't enjoy my music as much.

I'm kind of love and hate it's treble at the same time, but clears just show music as it is The mid's came toe to toe against my closed back which has the best midrange that I've heard on headphone, if it is decently powered. Intimate presentation of pm3 can play a big part here though . Quality of bass in clears is in the different league for me, impactful, rounded and somehow laid back at the same time. Love it, just sometimes feel eager to hear more of that bass with specific music. Nonetheless Focals were the best sounding similarly priced headphones in the shop. I was surprised how other headphones at such price range excelled in certain areas, but carried obvious faults in different ones. I know things can be fixed with EQ, but I'm still mostly plug&play guy and in that regard clear had no faults.
 
Nov 28, 2020 at 2:49 PM Post #8,235 of 12,607
Superpong said:
Does anyone try or compare Clear with Beyerdynamic T1 3rd generation?
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T1's are just crap.

1st gen was bad, but people paired it with super warm gear and called it win, it still wasn't amazing, tried it myself.
2nd gen wasn't even bad, it's embarrassingly terrible, no matter what you pair it with, in this case even WA2 with best tubes won't save it.
3rd gen... fool me once ... fool me twice ... I'm not even giving a try the 3rd version.

I'm not usually negative, but seriously this is the only headphone that I hate, because of how disappointing it is, especially for the price.

There is no comparison to Clear. Clear is amazing.
 
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