[raypin]

mmm....with the recall of first batch of the Elears by Focal, as a preemptive move, is the same course of action being contemplated for the Utopia??? I'm concerned a bit being a Utopia pre-order customer. Any official info or reassurance appreciated. TIA.
 
@Stillhart and others who have contributed to this thread with their listening impressions, keep on posting. For those  lucky to be among the first owners of the new Focals, please post your impressions. tia

 

[Currawong]

I think that's enough of that discussion. Please discuss the headphones, or wait for more impressions. 

 

[24grant24]

OK, I'll talk about the new focal headphones. I don't think it is remotely possible for the Elear to be considered "High fidelity" when the measurements (head-fis own measurements I should add) show it to be down 20 decibels! at 4khz from 1 khz.

 

[Rowethren]

Seems I inadvertently started a huge argument by asking for opinions regarding HE-400i vs Elear... Sorry about that :confused_face(1): hopefully people can get more on topic! At the end of the day people impressions are how they hear things, you don't have their brain/ears so how can you guys say what a headphone sounds to someone else? (rhetorical question).

Puts a new guy like me off asking questions if this is how they end up .

Back on topic, I look forward to CanJam where I can test these headphones along with all the other TOTL gear. I will give feedback after then as long as people promise not to argue about it :rolleyes:

 

[Currawong]

OK, I'll talk about the new focal headphones. I don't think it is remotely possible for the Elear to be considered "High fidelity" when the measurements (head-fis own measurements I should add) show it to be down 20 decibels! at 4khz from 1 khz.

 
I've always found a drop at 4kHz to be necessary for headphones not to sound "wrong" to me. I haven't watched the whole video and not asked Jude specifically, but we need to consider what compensation curve is being used in the measurement rig as that might be emphasising it. Given the range, I'd be interested on comments on the sound with vocals and instrumental tracks as that drop is in the range they'd be affected by. 
 
Here are screen snaps of the graphs which I've labelled: 
 

 

[warrenpchi]

OK, I'll talk about the new focal headphones. I don't think it is remotely possible for the Elear to be considered "High fidelity" when the measurements (head-fis own measurements I should add) show it to be down 20 decibels! at 4khz from 1 khz.

 
My guess would be that it was intentionally done to reduce sibilance in the 4Khz range.  But I've seen much more severe notches in FR, even in headphones that people seem to favor here on Head-Fi, so I guess it can't be that bad.

 

[24grant24]

4k doesnt cause sibilance it is responsible for crunch, and even so 20db would be complete overkill to avoid any sibilance. And the compensation curve or measurement rig isn't the issue because the very consistent hd800 was measured and is available on the same rig so it shows how the different rigs compare. Even the utopia has a pretty good frequency response as shown on this rig so the 20db hole is isolated to the elear. So be aware that if you buy an elear say goodbye to a whole octave in the middle of the music. No crunchy guitars is an especially heinous crime against music imo :frown:

 

[shockwaver]

On graphs, Utopia seems to be mostly neutral.
flat thru 200~700 Hz range, then gently ascending (about 1.5~2 dB) till 2 kHz. 
and steeply descending after the main peak(the peak is variable from rig to rig, person to person.)  
peaking again around ear concha resonance range and nose diving around 9khz.

 

[warrenpchi]

4k doesnt cause sibilance it is responsible for crunch.

 
I dunno about that.  Head-Fi's glossary seems to indicate that sibilance can begin at 4Khz:
 

Sibilant (or Sibilance)

 - "Essy", exaggerated "s" or "sh" sounds in vocals. Sibilant sounds carry most of their energy through the 4Khz to 8Khz range, but can extend to 10kHz, depending on the individual. Sibilance is often heard on radio.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing in favor of the 20dB drop.  But like I said, I've seen worse notches that didn't seem to bother people too much.

 

[raypin]

Mmm....for Focal owners, what is the build quality like? Is it built like a tank (can take a lot of abuse) or is it flimsy/sloppily-built that will fall apart in the face of normal wear and tear?

 

[conquerator2]

4 - 5K is the sibilance area. Again, this depends on treble sensitivity and whatnot, but generally speaking that tends to be the prominent range.
It does obviously contribute to other aspects, like leading edge (crunch happens lower IMO) but generally I always found a slight drop in that range favorable. We will see how well that dip is implemented in the Elear. Many headphones peak in that area instead and that is something my young, sensitive ears despise and my wallet doesn't buy

 

[shockwaver]

voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ is the most annoying one. /sh/ is less so.
voiced sibilants such as /z/, /ʒ/ don't cause much problem.

 

[ubs28]

The HD 650 has a dip around -8 db in the 4k-6khz region and it has no sibliance problem. So -20 db is really overkill to fight sibliance?
 
But maybe we should wait till Tyll has measured these headphones to see if there is indeed a -20 db dip.

 

[arnaud]

The difference in measured response between elear and utopia is quite interesting. It looks like there is much more acoustic damping (pads?) in the elear (starting to kick in as early as upper mid-bass region), yet the resonances in the upper mids / treble region have a higher Q (i.e. are more pronounced / sharper) in the elear than the utopia (just as was seen in the impedance response).
 
The pads most certainly play a very large part in the differences between these 2 phones voicing. However - I could be totally off base here (most likely am actually lol) - throwing an utopia (perforated leather) pad in an elear (fiber pad) expecting to get 99% of Utopia at a much less cost might not come without sacrifices. In particular, I could imagine the elear becoming painfully bright.
 
As for the comparison against the HD800, it makes me quite interesting in listening to the Utopia as I might like that voicing actually (thank you Jude / Curra for posting these). Out of curiosity, do these measurements have any kind of compensation? I am guessing they do if they've been measured on an ear simulator because we don't see the typical gain from concha etc... but I don't recall Jude mentioning about eq. curve when we discussed in Tokyo. [sorry if this is too nerdy for the main audience ]
 
cheers,
arnaud

 

[shockwaver]

sound from 4 to 5khz resembles cricket call which is different from hissing.