[ozz]

I think I will just stay with my original Clear's for now as they did everything I wanted in a headphone currently.

 

[Guidostrunk]

To me it looks like the MG is less open than the OG. Especially when you hear some of the reports that the MG is fuller and warmer. Sounds to me like the new grill has some reflective resonance hitting the ear due to the new grill.
Now.... does that translate into a more intimate less airy response? Idk?
Then I wonder if the dekoni velour on the OG are accomplishing the same feat? Because so far all the descriptions of the MG seem to align with the Velour/OG sound signature ie ....warmer, fuller, more detailed. ...etc.

I'm really looking forward to the review from @Resolve . His input will determine if I empty my cart for the MG either way lol.

 

[roskodan]

I'm sure both are equally "open". Don't lose any sleep over that.

The new one does look sharp tho. Especially if one has a jacket like Jude's in his review video. Looking good Jude.

Less a fan of having to play the video every time I wanna check the measurements. So...

 

[davesday]

Hi everyone, I recently got the OG Clear Professional for a very good deal from my local Australian retailer. The headphone is excellent sounding and I am very impressed with the design. I am new to the Focal brand and my experience with its 'workmanship quality' is just below perfect. To be clear, it is very very good but perhaps my luck has been so so with it. My first pair was the Celestee but that suffered a bass rattling on the right driver. My second pair is this Clear Pro but I found a minor imperfection on the grill of the right driver. Has anyone seen something similar on their pair? Looks like adhesive residue but it doesn't go away. Does look like a melt due to soldering iron but there is no burnt mark or discolouration. Pictures below.

 

[sebek]

How do you find the Focal Clear at the timbre level? I am often reading the adjective "metallic".

 

[Golyatx]

Hi everyone, I recently got the OG Clear Professional for a very good deal from my local Australian retailer. The headphone is excellent sounding and I am very impressed with the design. I am new to the Focal brand and my experience with its 'workmanship quality' is just below perfect. To be clear, it is very very good but perhaps my luck has been so so with it. My first pair was the Celestee but that suffered a bass rattling on the right driver. My second pair is this Clear Pro but I found a minor imperfection on the grill of the right driver. Has anyone seen something similar on their pair? Looks like adhesive residue but it doesn't go away. Does look like a melt due to soldering iron but there is no burnt mark or discolouration. Pictures below.

"I recently got the OG Clear Professional for a very good deal" you answered your question in your post.
Thats probably it. The dealer knew it (and should say it to you), thats why very good deal.
You can try write to him if its possible to replace the pair. But I think he will answer you the same as I did.
It is just my opinion tho.

If you got it for good price and it doesnt bother you, I would keep it (but I would also try to write him).

 

[roskodan]

Doesn't really matter. I'm all for even the slightest improvement. It's just that... the "more open" rant... it's just marketing. Tuning headphones is a much more specific matter. Need the right acoustic impedance for tuning the frequency response, in fact "more open" can be, and usually is, really bad in that regard. There is a silky acoustic impedance, dust, filter under the mesh and all around the driver, cup. As far as reflections and resonances, the bigger flat surface of the grill and thinner gauge of the mesh, can only make things messier. Also, it doesn't look more open, regardless of the seemingly thinner gauge, which is just a purely cosmetic matter anyhow.

Btw, noticed the og Clear also have the thinner mesh, but only for the center mesh piece where the Focal logo is. If the new Clear has the same mesh for the center piece as well as for the surrounding mesh piece, it was probably done to save cost to balance the extra cost of the honeycomb grill. Maybe they thought it looks better to have one type of mesh only.

 

[Golyatx]

Anyone compared RME ADI 2 DAC and Focal Arche?

 

[ctrlm]

Anyone compared RME ADI 2 DAC and Focal Arche?

Funny you should ask.....I did exactly that yesterday after flashing my ADI-2 version 2 with the latest firmware that supposedly improves the steady clock effect in the lower frequencies, ie. jitter rejection. I'll post impressions tonight as I have to leave for work right now.

 

[rickydenim]

Funny you should ask.....I did exactly that yesterday after flashing my ADI-2 version 2 with the latest firmware that supposedly improves the steady clock effect in the lower frequencies, ie. jitter rejection. I'll post impressions tonight as I have to leave for work right now.

Really keen to hear your impressions! Was very close on buying the ADI-2 but my lust has withered since getting the Arche

 

[ctrlm]

OK - I have some time to recount my impressions of using my Clears with both the RME ADI-2 and the Focal Arche. I'll pre-empt this by saying that different people have different preferred sound signatures so it's not a simple case of one thing being better than another and I guess my preferred sound signature probably resides on the cleaner side of music reproduction rather than warmer or smoother - acknowledging that there are compromises on both sides. For example, in music it used to be that you were either a Rolling Stones person or a Beatles person (Stones for me) and in headphones I am an HD600 person rather than an HD650 person. Get my drift?

Anyway, enough with the analogies.

Using the Arche I have come to prefer the Hybrid amplifier setting with my Clears. I find the dedicated Clear setting a touch too smooth on a lot of material and the Voltage setting accentuates the highs maybe too much? All very subjective of course and the differences aren't huge but there are differences. Interestingly I found this graph that highlights the change in frequency response between using the different amp settings with Focal Stellias, it highlights that my preferred hybrid setting makes me a fence sitter :

Of course there may be other differences apart from just frequency response.

On the sound differences between the ADI-2 and the Arche......I'm not going into too much detail as I'm not very good at it anyway. Both use AKM DAC chips, albeit different models - dual AK4490 in the Arche vs single AK4493 in the ADI-2.

To me the ADI-2 is cleaner and punchier in the mid bass, where the Arche exhibits that warmer mid bass bloom that AKM is famous for - aka "the AKM velvet sound." The actual DACs should sound pretty much the same so I don't know if the difference here is that RME made some adjustment in their DAC or whether the difference is the A class amplification of the Arche? The Arche is fuller & richer sounding overall, whilst the ADI-2 is cleaner and more open without sounding analytical or sterile (IMO). The Arche sound to me sits somewhere between traditional solid state and tubes.

To me they are clearly different but I enjoy both, and as they are in different setups in my home - I can. That's why I have more than one set of headphones, to experience different presentations based on my mood and the material I'm listening to. I really like my Hifiman Anandas with the Arche and funnily enough I probably prefer my Clears with the ADI-2......but that really is splitting hairs. I'm not going to go out of my way to use one unit over the other.

If I really had to choose one of them over the other, it would be the RME ADI-2......but it's not a fair fight as it has much more functionality than the Arche.

 

[roskodan]

Crinacle og Clear vs Mg Clear impressions (quoted the summarizing part):

https://crinacle.com/2021/03/22/crinnotes-focal-clear-mg-quick-review-padgate/

There are some major caveats of course, for instance the Clears that I was testing with had very worn pads and so may not even be representative of what a Clear with fresh pads would be like. But it is also to be noted that I actually liked the Clears that I was using with the worn Clear pads and not so much with the fresh Clear Mg pads, so if the latter is supposedly more representative of what a true Clear is supposed to sound like then some downranking is in order. Certainly a lose-lose situation here.

But let’s talk a little more about the whole Clear vs Clear Mg debacle. With the two on Clear Mg pads thereby putting both on equal ground in a tonal sense, the technical differences get a lot more obvious. That is to say, the Clear Mg sounds noticeably mushier and “slower” than the original Clear, and a tad bit less resolving too.

 

[ValentineLuke]

Crinacle og Clear vs Mg Clear impressions (quoted the summarizing part):

That’s very interesting. I’ve found the MG to be faster, and more resolving than the OG. The opposite of what crinicle observed.

I had previously owned the OG for nearly a year but I decided to part with them due to the peaky nature of the treble. There is more ‘air’ in the MG, but it’s not nearly as fatiguing as the 6k peak in the OG for my ears. But the speed and resolution were some of the first things that stuck out from my first impressions of the MG (other than the smoother tonality).

 

[TheDuke990]

The complete list / ranking from crinacle is imho not really good. It's just another subjective opinion same as mine.
So I don't care and enjoy my Clear MG .

 

[Golyatx]

https://tidal.com/track/91076376

such a masterpiece on Clears....