[Shane D]

• As for Clear OG, I have been very happy with build quality, comfort, & sound quality.
• Absolutely no driver clipping, headband creaking, or other anomalies.
• Note: I use Dekoni fenestrated sheepskin earpads, Forza Audio Works / Norne Audio cables.
• I have owned Clear OG for 4 years. Recently, I bought a second Clear OG as backup.

You do love your backups.

 

[jonathan c]

You do love your backups.

... as well as situps, abdominal crunches, obliques resistance twists, sets of 610 lb leg presses ...

 

[Shane D]

... as well as situps, abdominal crunches, obliques resistance twists, sets of 610 lb leg presses ...

You Arnie, you.

 

[Erick Muller]

• As for Clear OG, I have been very happy with build quality, comfort, & sound quality.
• Absolutely no driver clipping, headband creaking, or other anomalies.
• Note: I use Dekoni fenestrated sheepskin earpads, Forza Audio Works / Norne Audio cables.
• I have owned Clear OG for 4 years. Recently, I bought a second Clear OG as backup.

The Clears are definitively the most comfortable and best fitting of all the focals I have on hand. The elegias feel fine but I think I'm not getting the best seal possible to get the best possible bass from them and the radiance feel good, but are a little bit more clampy than the clears. The clear's strike a perfect balance imho.

 

[yrstruly]

Clear OG are still one of the most well-rounded, satisfying headphones I've heard. Arguably the best bass punch on any Focal headphone...!

 

[Erick Muller]

Clear OG are still one of the most well-rounded, satisfying headphones I've heard. Arguably the best bass punch on any Focal headphone...!

Definitively, this is the most refine sounding headphone in my entire collection, granted my collection is not super high-end, specially for today's standards, my LCD2C's when you EQ them properly are more "fun" sounding than the Clears, but given the ergonomics of audeze's line, I can listen to the clear's for far longer before getting fatigued.

 

[Musiccc]

Thanks for recommending that song, been a long time since I heard it, and dance to it too, used to take some latin dances classes a couple of years ago and during class, the dance teacher would often put on that song so we could practice some moves.

Already did my testing, apparently it was a combination of both my eq settings on roon and the amp in 100ma mode, I was listening to volumes that previously would have clipped the driver and once I took the eq off, problem gone, even on 100ma mode, and I up the volume more to see if I could induce the same issue and it was getting uncomfortably loud, even for me, and couldn't heard anything, ditto for both the radiance and the elegias.

I brought down the low shelf on the bass in my eq setting and also the high shelf in the treble, and also I can report that I didn't notice any issues with the clear's. Thanks for all your advice and help with this issue, I was getting worried I had a broken clear and it was just me in the end.

I still think that the clear drivers are a little bit more delicate compare to other headphone's on focal's line up and even more so compare to other manufactures, because I haven't experience that issue with any of my other headphones, even with EQ and at even louder volumes than the clear, but for now I'm satisfied with the results of this troubleshooting.

There were many Focal Clear driver issues during it's early production. There were many concerns, discussions about the defects at that time. Music with few low frequency would play ok most of the times. But the main stream music would reveal the defects quickly. That song was written exclusively to detect the defects.

I bought a used/mint pair from here (for sale ad) during the early days. The very first song I played with that Clear was......
You guess it!

 

[jonathan c]

You Arnie, you.

"I'll be [listening via closed- or open-] back" !!

 

[GearMe]

You Arnie, you.

Palmer? figured Western PA; he's prolly a member at Latrobe CC

 

[jonathan c]

Palmer? figured Western PA; he's prolly a member at Latrobe CC

....Schwarzenegger

 

[GearMe]

Yeah...guessed that; just being a smart alec

 

[jonathan c]

Yeah...guessed that; just being a smart alec

.... although Latrobe CC is a nice layout. Only there once .

 

[stevedlu]

ok guys, I just got a pair of OG Clears from headphones.com...my pair sounds god awful, they are hard to drive, the vocals/mids are very muffled and odd sounding, and the treble is super harsh and distorted. I've tried it on 4 different amp/dac setups with all the same effect. I've been running them for about 32hrs now with no change. None of this adds up to all the descriptions/reviews I have seen online. Do these sometimes come as duds and need to be replaced? Mojo 2, Woo Mini, MacBook headphone out all sound the same. I tried all three cables too. headphones.com says sales are final on the OG clears...do I just need to run them in longer? ive never had a pair of headphones so well regarded come in sounding like this.

 

[Shane D]

ok guys, I just got a pair of OG Clears from headphones.com...my pair sounds god awful, they are hard to drive, the vocals/mids are very muffled and odd sounding, and the treble is super harsh and distorted. I've tried it on 4 different amp/dac setups with all the same effect. I've been running them for about 32hrs now with no change. None of this adds up to all the descriptions/reviews I have seen online. Do these sometimes come as duds and need to be replaced? Mojo 2, Woo Mini, MacBook headphone out all sound the same. I tried all three cables too. headphones.com says sales are final on the OG clears...do I just need to run them in longer? ive never had a pair of headphones so well regarded come in sounding like this.

That doesn't sound right at all. Have you contacted Headphones.com? I would contact them looking for a replacement and see what they say.

I bought my Clear's and Radiance's from them, but I didn't have problems.

Good luck!

 

[Erick Muller]

ok guys, I just got a pair of OG Clears from headphones.com...my pair sounds god awful, they are hard to drive, the vocals/mids are very muffled and odd sounding, and the treble is super harsh and distorted. I've tried it on 4 different amp/dac setups with all the same effect. I've been running them for about 32hrs now with no change. None of this adds up to all the descriptions/reviews I have seen online. Do these sometimes come as duds and need to be replaced? Mojo 2, Woo Mini, MacBook headphone out all sound the same. I tried all three cables too. headphones.com says sales are final on the OG clears...do I just need to run them in longer? ive never had a pair of headphones so well regarded come in sounding like this.

Yep, I also got my pair from headphones.com, since I first plugged them in until today, they're probably the best headphone I have right now.

Some of focal's headphones need some burn in before they come to life according to some reviewers at least, for example the Stellias, but I'm not so sure with the clear's, probably should talk with your rep from headphones.com about this.