[samandhi]

The problem is that this specifically the audio quality score I’m talking about. Even if you ignore all other factors and look just at the sound quality, RTings gave a higher sound quality score to the AirPods Pro than to the Stellia.

True, that it makes no sense to us. We would need to ask them to define their parameters for what "best sound quality" is to them.


If you look at big box store reviews, the Beats, Bose, Apple, etc... of the world always get literally (near) perfect scores for sound quality. That is probably because they are normally tuned in such a way as to sound best with .mp3 files (like they used to tune the bass purposely sloppy to accentuate the poor reproduction of bass in .mp3s). That, and they probably get paid boatloads of money to say such things. Most times I don't think those reviewers even listen to the set and simply regurgitate the same message as written by the manufacturer. The word "audiophile" is not a term in their vocabulary when doing these reviews (normally).

Most times you will see them use the term "high end" or "boutique" rather than "audiophile" (though some DO use the term, albeit incorrectly). After all (if one had to) the term "audiophile" could actually be summed up with one word: Accurate. None of those mentioned earlier could ever be considered accurate, but are more tuned to be "fun".

Also, as was stated, most people look at sound quality with mystery, and find the bells and whistles to be of more importance (by far). If listening to very low quality files, you don't need high end sound quality. As a matter of fact, the lower quality head gear actually sounds better with this crap than does a high end set that will reveal all the flaws (trash in, trash out).

 

[mainguy]

For those scores, I don't think they are the results of real testing. Like I said earlier, they probably use some bot to collect those published data and use some algorithm to come with all those scores.

As an audiophile, I guess the best advise is to avoid those websites. I would say that Rtings is an "honest" website since it is full of plain bulls**t, we should be careful of those websites that focus on entry level audiophile and provide tons of reviews, many of them are paid.

If you look at their site they actually measure every headphone. It's their interpretation of the measurements, and they present it as some objective measure, but it's total garbage lol. Just misleading consumers

True, that it makes no sense to us. We would need to ask them to define their parameters for what "best sound quality" is to them.

Whatever their parameters may be, there is no parameter that the airpods pro 1 are better than the Stellia & Elegia, for sound. They're just talking out of their asses lol. It's so bad you couldn't make it up.

 

[samandhi]

If you look at their site they actually measure every headphone. It's their interpretation of the measurements, and they present it as some objective measure, but it's total garbage lol. Just misleading consumers


Whatever their parameters may be, there is no parameter that the airpods pro 1 are better than the Stellia & Elegia, for sound. They're just talking out of their asses lol. It's so bad you couldn't make it up.

I LOLed... Thanks for that!

 

[Heyyoudvd]

Well, I’ve joined the club.

I wanted an “errand headphone” for when I do things around my apartment, and most of my headphones are open backs, so I jumped at the Adorama deal to finally get a good closed back. Also, I’ve been wanting to try out Focal for ages, and the Clear are beyond my current budget, so I figured the Elegia will give me a taste of that Focal sound, while providing the benefits of a closed back.

The deal was for $299, but after tax, shipping, customs, and exchange, I paid about $545 CAD total, which is around $405 USD all-in. If I were to buy them locally in Canada, the current deal I’ve seen is $550 pre-tax, which is about $620 after tax. So I saved ~$75 CAD by going with Adorama.


Anyways, in terms of the Focal Elegia, it’s way too early for a review, but here are a few preliminary thoughts:

1. Build. The build quality is fantastic. France isn’t kidding around. These things feel like a piece of fashion. The unboxing experience was nice and the carrying case has so much attention and care that went into it. The zipper is high quality and even ships with little plastic protectors, the shape of the case is perfectly molded, and even that little velcro thing that wraps the cable has a little velcro wrap within the velcro wrap so that it latches on to one piece of cable to allow you to wrap the rest of the cable. Focal’s attention to detail is really impressive. The headphones even smell like a piece of high end fashion, if that makes sense.

2. Cable. Everything people are saying about the cable is exactly right. I got the updated rubber version, and it still feels well built with nice rubber and beautiful connectors, but all of that is moot because the thing is stiff as hell. It may be a nice piece of fashion, but it’s terrible for actual usability.

3. Aesthetics. The headphones themselves are absolutely beautiful. Even though these are the lowest headphone in Focal’s lineup and they use plastic cups, they’re still gorgeous. The colour choices. The metal yokes. The Focal logo vent. The chamfered edges. The shiny screws. The matching pads and headband. This is all beautiful stuff.

4. Size. The headphones are huge. These are bigger than I expected. There have already been several occasions where I’ve inadvertently knocked the cup with my hand when going to scratch my head because the cups jut out so far. Not really, a complaint, just an observation. It might take a bit of getting used to.

5. Comfort. I find these pretty comfortable, but finicky. The positioning of the cups affects both the comfort and the sound. Initially I had each cup extended to the 4th notch, and just by pulling them to the 5th notch, that improved the sound by lowering the cups relative to my ears. Also, because these things are so big and unusual, I find that whenever I go back to another pair of headphones, they suddenly feel weird. My brain needs to get re-acclimated to the feel of my other headphones’ cups each time.

5. Portable Amp. In terms of amplification, I tried these with my Apple dongle and they sounded a bit congested. For a headphone that is supposedly very easy to drive, the volume on my iPhone had to be almost as high as it is for my 300 ohm Senn 6XX, and I actually find the dongle drives the 6XX better than the Elegia in terms of sound. So I’m considering getting a portable amp/dac like a Qudelix 5K for these. Does anyone have experience with an iPhone + Qudelix 5K + Elegia?

6. Desktop Amp. For desktop amplification, I have a PC with a Xonar sound card hooked up to a Topping L30. Those seem to power the Elegia much better than the dongle does. And for reference, I play them on medium gain at about 9:30 on the L30’s dial, whereas my 6XX and K702 are on high gain around there. So in that respect, the Elegia require less power.

7. Sound. Now, as far as the actual sound, I’ll need a lot more time with these before evaluating. My first impression is good, but a little weird. Some songs sound much better than others and there is some odd tuning going on. I can tell that there’s a fair bit of information/detail in there, but some songs have this weird recessed sound where a particular vocal might sound like it’s hidden behind something. It’s strange because certain things sound really good, while other things don’t. Like others have said, there isn’t a lot of bass, but I wouldn’t consider myself a basshead anyway.

I don’t have much else to say about the sound yet because I haven’t listened enough to really form an opinion. All I’ll say so far is that the headphones sound good, but they haven’t absolutely knocked my socks off. I’m not sure where they’ll end up ranking in my list (see below), but my spur-of-the-moment first impression is that they don’t sound like $900 USD. Their build and aesthetics are the best of any headphone I own, but the sound is merely good, not mind-blowing. It doesn’t upend the below list with a Tier 0 or anything like that. These will either end up falling into Tier 2 or maybe Tier 1 for me. It remains to be seen which. And I don’t know about EQ. I’ve never been one to EQ anything, but since a lot of people recommend it, I may give it a shot at some point.

__________

Just to get an idea of where I’m coming from with all of the above thoughts, here are the headphones I currently own and how I’d rank them:

Tier 1:
Sennheiser HD 6XX
Grado Hemp
AKG K702

Tier 2:
Denon AH-D750
AirPods Pro 2
AirPods Max
Grado SR-60
Koss KPH30i (the technicals are Tier 3, but I love the tuning so much on this)

Tier 3:
Koss KSC-75
Koss PortaPro
Powerbeats Pro
AirPods Pro
Audio Technica ATH-M50
Audio Technica ATH-A900

Tier 4:
AirPods OG
BeatsX


Nothing in the kilobuck range yet, although if things go well with work, I’m going to treat myself to an Arya Stealth in a few months. But for the time being, I’m mostly familiar with mid-fi territory.

Now that I have the Elegia, they are the highest MSRP headphone I own, although they were only the 3rd most expensive in actual cost to me, after the AirPods Max and the Grado Hemp.

 

[InvisibleInk]

Does anyone have experience with an iPhone + Qudelix 5K + Elegia?

Yeah, that's a good match. Bonus is the parametric EQ. Chrome browser has an extension for the 5K.

A guy on reddit made stickers for the 5K to make it easier to use. They look like below when affixed to the unit.

Minimal and standard button layouts:

 

[peterinvan]

Well, I’ve joined the club.

I wanted an “errand headphone” for when I do things around my apartment, and most of my headphones are open backs, so I jumped at the Adorama deal to finally get a good closed back. Also, I’ve been wanting to try out Focal for ages, and the Clear are beyond my current budget, so I figured the Elegia will give me a taste of that Focal sound, while providing the benefits of a closed back.

The deal was for $299, but after tax, shipping, customs, and exchange, I paid about $545 CAD total, which is around $405 USD all-in. If I were to buy them locally in Canada, the current deal I’ve seen is $550 pre-tax, which is about $620 after tax. So I saved ~$75 CAD by going with Adorama.


Anyways, in terms of the Focal Elegia, it’s way too early for a review, but here are a few preliminary thoughts:

1. Build. The build quality is fantastic. France isn’t kidding around. These things feel like a piece of fashion. The unboxing experience was nice and the carrying case has so much attention and care that went into it. The zipper is high quality and even ships with little plastic protectors, the shape of the case is perfectly molded, and even that little velcro thing that wraps the cable has a little velcro wrap within the velcro wrap so that it latches on to one piece of cable to allow you to wrap the rest of the cable. Focal’s attention to detail is really impressive. The headphones even smell like a piece of high end fashion, if that makes sense.

2. Cable. Everything people are saying about the cable is exactly right. I got the updated rubber version, and it still feels well built with nice rubber and beautiful connectors, but all of that is moot because the thing is stiff as hell. It may be a nice piece of fashion, but it’s terrible for actual usability.

3. Aesthetics. The headphones themselves are absolutely beautiful. Even though these are the lowest headphone in Focal’s lineup and they use plastic cups, they’re still gorgeous. The colour choices. The metal yokes. The Focal logo vent. The chamfered edges. The shiny screws. The matching pads and headband. This is all beautiful stuff.

4. Size. The headphones are huge. These are bigger than I expected. There have already been several occasions where I’ve inadvertently knocked the cup with my hand when going to scratch my head because the cups jut out so far. Not really, a complaint, just an observation. It might take a bit of getting used to.

5. Comfort. I find these pretty comfortable, but finicky. The positioning of the cups affects both the comfort and the sound. Initially I had each cup extended to the 4th notch, and just by pulling them to the 5th notch, that improved the sound by lowering the cups relative to my ears. Also, because these things are so big and unusual, I find that whenever I go back to another pair of headphones, they suddenly feel weird. My brain needs to get re-acclimated to the feel of my other headphones’ cups each time.

5. Portable Amp. In terms of amplification, I tried these with my Apple dongle and they sounded a bit congested. For a headphone that is supposedly very easy to drive, the volume on my iPhone had to be almost as high as it is for my 300 ohm Senn 6XX, and I actually find the dongle drives the 6XX better than the Elegia in terms of sound. So I’m considering getting a portable amp/dac like a Qudelix 5K for these. Does anyone have experience with an iPhone + Qudelix 5K + Elegia?

6. Desktop Amp. For desktop amplification, I have a PC with a Xonar sound card hooked up to a Topping L30. Those seem to power the Elegia much better than the dongle does. And for reference, I play them on medium gain at about 9:30 on the L30’s dial, whereas my 6XX and K702 are on high gain around there. So in that respect, the Elegia require less power.

7. Sound. Now, as far as the actual sound, I’ll need a lot more time with these before evaluating. My first impression is good, but a little weird. Some songs sound much better than others and there is some odd tuning going on. I can tell that there’s a fair bit of information/detail in there, but some songs have this weird recessed sound where a particular vocal might sound like it’s hidden behind something. It’s strange because certain things sound really good, while other things don’t. Like others have said, there isn’t a lot of bass, but I wouldn’t consider myself a basshead anyway.

I don’t have much else to say about the sound yet because I haven’t listened enough to really form an opinion. All I’ll say so far is that the headphones sound good, but they haven’t absolutely knocked my socks off. I’m not sure where they’ll end up ranking in my list (see below), but my spur-of-the-moment first impression is that they don’t sound like $900 USD. Their build and aesthetics are the best of any headphone I own, but the sound is merely good, not mind-blowing. It doesn’t upend the below list with a Tier 0 or anything like that. These will either end up falling into Tier 2 or maybe Tier 1 for me. It remains to be seen which. And I don’t know about EQ. I’ve never been one to EQ anything, but since a lot of people recommend it, I may give it a shot at some point.

__________

Just to get an idea of where I’m coming from with all of the above thoughts, here are the headphones I currently own and how I’d rank them:

Tier 1:
Sennheiser HD 6XX
Grado Hemp
AKG K702

Tier 2:
Denon AH-D750
AirPods Pro 2
AirPods Max
Grado SR-60
Koss KPH30i (the technicals are Tier 3, but I love the tuning so much on this)

Tier 3:
Koss KSC-75
Koss PortaPro
Powerbeats Pro
AirPods Pro
Audio Technica ATH-M50
Audio Technica ATH-A900

Tier 4:
AirPods OG
BeatsX


Nothing in the kilobuck range yet, although if things go well with work, I’m going to treat myself to an Arya Stealth in a few months. But for the time being, I’m mostly familiar with mid-fi territory.

Now that I have the Elegia, they are the highest MSRP headphone I own, although they were only the 3rd most expensive in actual cost to me, after the AirPods Max and the Grado Hemp.

In my experience the Elegia drivers do not reach optimum flexibility till about 100 hours.

After playing with Dekoni pads, I finally settled on the Dekoni “Stellia Custom” pads. Very happy

 

[MarkF786]

I'm curious, does anyone have impressions from using the Elex pads on the Elegia? I have Elear and Elex pads; the Elear appear to be the same except for the inside color, though I'm going to try the Elex.

 

[JaVerde]

Anyone here eq their Elegia ?

 

[InvisibleInk]

Anyone here eq their Elegia ?

Yeah, but not to match any well known target frequency response. And my values are not applicable to others, because my hearing makes demands I doubt anyone else needs. And, to top off the uselessness, I use fixed band EQ in the digital domain. Sorry for not being helpful.

 

[Heyyoudvd]

Anyone here eq their Elegia ?

Yeah, I’ve been playing around with it and it has improved the sound so much for me.

As an addendum to my above long post, the default sound of the Elegia just sounds too weird to me, almost like you’ve got tissue paper stuffed into your ears. I’ve only been using the Elegia for a day, but was already getting pretty crushed because I love so many things about this headphone (see post #4,219 above), but the single most imporant factor - sound - was just bugging me and making me start to regret the purchase.

I‘ve never been one to EQ anything, but I’ve heard a lot of people swear by EQing the Elegia, so I figured why not, I’ll give it a shot.

I don’t know anything about EQing, but I opened my PC sound card’s audio app (Xonar DX Audio Center), tried out the 12 different EQ profiles, and my favourite was the ‘Dance’ profile. I then upped the bass a little bit.

Wow. What a difference. These sound like an entirely different headphone.

The Elegia are known as mid-forward, so I guess adding the v-shape to the frequency response corrected for that, but it suddenly sounds so much more alive to me. And now whenever I toggle between this and the default, the default sounds like I’m back to shoving tissues in my ears.

For reference, this is what I did:

I have no idea whether or not that’s “correct” or whether audiophiles would scoff at that kind of v-shape, but to my ear, it sounds so much better than the default tuning.

The EQ still needs tweaking and isn’t perfect, but I find the headphones now sound great, whereas the default just bothered me.


The fact that EQing can make such a dramatic difference is giving me a bit of an existential crisis! If the equalizer can make headphones sound so much better, how much of a headphone’s reviewed performance is simply EQ vs how much is inherent to the headphone? Can I make my Grados into a Sennheiser? Can my AKG K702 become a bass monster? Can I turn my KSC-75 into an Orpheus? Okay, maybe not that last one. But it seems like EQ can do a lot, and that would ironically make this headphone collecting hobby less interesting, not more.

I don’t know what to believe anymore! lol.

 

[samandhi]

Even though these are the lowest headphone in Focal’s lineup and they use plastic cups, they’re still gorgeous.

Congrats on your new shiny!

Also, keep in mind that these aren't/weren't the lowest in their lineup, but were the lowest in their "high-end" lineup. Also, they were the first closed back in their "high-end" lineup. I know that is probably just semantics, but I thought I would let you know.

In my experience the Elegia drivers do not reach optimum flexibility till about 100 hours.

After playing with Dekoni pads, I finally settled on the Dekoni “Stellia Custom” pads. Very happy

This is very true. They DID change sound profile a bit over time. Though (to my ears) they sounded fantastic right out of the box. Different? Yes, but very enjoyable to me. I think that because these are indeed "placement" dependent for its sound to be optimal, wearing in the pads a bit simply through use will be the biggest factor in "breaking them in" as it were....

I have that set also, and frequently switch between the stock and these for the different sound profiles they offer. (To my ears) the Stelia pads offer less deep bass, but much more mid bass (punchier), and the mids aren't as forward, while also blunting the treble region just a bit. This isn't to say that they are undesirable at all, just a very different sound.

Anyone here eq their Elegia ?

I wish I could find the forum that I found some settings so I could offer that here, but at some point, I found a site where a person uses measurements to make PEQ profiles (much like Auto-EQ, but not targeting Harmon, or anything like that). I don't like the Harmon Auto-EQ settings for these at all. This person simply EQ'ed the major dips to bring those areas up to be a bit more linear so that one will not find any part of the spectrum "missing" or "recessed" from the overall sound. It works very well (if tyou like the stock tuning and just want to correct that). You can then tweak up or down anything else that you may find needing some regression or addition.

I use this in Neutron app on my DX300, so it may sound different on other PEQ profiles (being different algorithms and all). YMMV and you might need to use subtractive rather than additive because Neutron has a preamp gain setting that can be customized on the fly.

20Hz Peak @ +5dB and Q 1
30Hz Peak @ +1.5dB and Q 1
40Hz Peak @ +4dB and BW 3 (This one is EQ not PEQ setting, which you can do in Neutron. I added this one for more punch. I turn it on or off depending on the type of music I am listening to at the time)
3277Hz @ +5dB and Q 2.5 (this, the presence region, is where most people find something... missing)
7000Hz @ +5dB and Q 3
Preamp Gain -4.2dB (has worked best for me, though the OP suggests -9dB IIRC which seems to be WAY too much. Maybe he has a lot of music that is way too compressed???)

That's it. With the stock pads these sound really good (for me), but this EQ profile takes it up a notch while not changing the (intended) profile of the phones. If you are wanting for them to sound more fun, or analytical, this will not be a good EQ profile for you. This just does what I mentioned earlier, making them better at what they are intended for, correcting the areas that are a bit too underexaggerated to be overall accurate in instrument placement and etc... Enjoy!

 

[Heyyoudvd]

Yeah, I’ve been playing around with it and it has improved the sound so much for me.

As an addendum to my above long post, the default sound of the Elegia just sounds too weird to me, almost like you’ve got tissue paper stuffed into your ears. I’ve only been using the Elegia for a day, but was already getting pretty crushed because I love so many things about this headphone (see post #4,219 above), but the single most imporant factor - sound - was just bugging me and making me start to regret the purchase.

I‘ve never been one to EQ anything, but I’ve heard a lot of people swear by EQing the Elegia, so I figured why not, I’ll give it a shot.

I don’t know anything about EQing, but I opened my PC sound card’s audio app (Xonar DX Audio Center), tried out the 12 different EQ profiles, and my favourite was the ‘Dance’ profile. I then upped the bass a little bit.

Wow. What a difference. These sound like an entirely different headphone.

The Elegia are known as mid-forward, so I guess adding the v-shape to the frequency response corrected for that, but it suddenly sounds so much more alive to me. And now whenever I toggle between this and the default, the default sounds like I’m back to shoving tissues in my ears.

For reference, this is what I did:



I have no idea whether or not that’s “correct” or whether audiophiles would scoff at that kind of v-shape, but to my ear, it sounds so much better than the default tuning.

The EQ still needs tweaking and isn’t perfect, but I find the headphones now sound great, whereas the default just bothered me.


The fact that EQing can make such a dramatic difference is giving me a bit of an existential crisis! If the equalizer can make headphones sound so much better, how much of a headphone’s reviewed performance is simply EQ vs how much is inherent to the headphone? Can I make my Grados into a Sennheiser? Can my AKG K702 become a bass monster? Can I turn my KSC-75 into an Orpheus? Okay, maybe not that last one. But it seems like EQ can do a lot, and that would ironically make this headphone collecting hobby less interesting, not more.

I don’t know what to believe anymore! lol.

Well, I’ve spent hours listening to the Elegia since this post, and it’s fair to say that my views have changed significantly.

You know how when you’re not a very good cook, you like to dump a ton of salt in your food because salt overpowers flavour and people tend to like salt?
You know how someone who is eating fine dining but doesn’t have a refined palate will slather their food in ketchup?
You know how someone who doesn’t know much about Scotch will throw in an ice cube, which tends to deaden the taste and remove the subtleties?

That’s how I now feel about EQ. Or at least how I was using it above.

I had no familiarity with EQ and my early impressions with the Elegia were weird, so I threw on EQ because bass is good and treble is good! But that’s basically the old Beats mentality. V-shapes can be fun, but they’re not always a good thing.

Well, I’ve gone back to listening to my Elegia without EQ and I think they sound…..excellent?

I can’t really explain it. People say that hardware burn-in is a hoax and that it’s all psychological, so if this is just some psychoacoustic effect, it’s one HELL of a convincing one for me. I no longer hear that ‘tissue paper’ effect I described above. I mean, something in the FR still is recessed compared to some of my other headphones and there is some oddness, but the overall sound is excellent despite that.

I’ve spent the last couple hours doing a lot of A/B testing between my 5 favourite headphones (in my collection of ~15) vs my new Elegia, and I’ve gotta say, the Elegia are right there trading blows with the best of them.

My current 5 favourite headphones I own:

1. Sennheiser HD6XX
2. Grado Hemp
3. AKG K702
4. Denon AH-D750
5. AirPods Max

So how do the Elegia compare?

• Out of the six headphones, the Elegia are tied in 2nd place for detail (along with the 6XX, only behind the K702).
• The soundstage and imaging are also in 2nd place (again, behind the K702).
• The Elegia are in 3rd place for sheer fun (behind the Denon and Hemp).
• They’re 2nd or 3rd place for vocal presence (behind the 6XX and Hemp).
• They’re 5th place in terms of amount of bass, but perhaps 2nd for precision and quality of bass.
• They’re 2nd place or perhaps even 1st for comfort (right up there with the 6XX).
• And of course, they’re easily 1st place for build, design, and visual aesthetics. These really are beautiful headphones. And they get extra points for the nice carrying case, which none of the others have.

Something else I noticed is that the Elegias have a sort of impact to their individual notes. Is this what reviewers refer to as “punch and slam”? Because I get a sort of snap to notes. It’s not extreme, but it’s definitely there in a way that it isn’t with my other headphones. It’s not that things are punching you in the face. Rather, it’s a sort of snappiness to the music, as though the driver excursion creates a sort of quick percussive sound. I think “slam” isn’t quite the right word for what I’m describing. It feels more like “snap”, like a rubber band snapping. Anyways, it’s nothing extreme, but I enjoy it.

The key point for me:

The final thing I’ll say is that the most important comparison here is how the Elegia stack up against the AirPods Max. Not only are they closest in price (both in the $500-$1000 MSRP range), but they’re both well-built closed backs, and as I mentioned earlier, I specifically purchased the Elegia to be my “errand headphone”, which is currently the job of my AirPods Max. Well, while the Elegia have pretty good sound isolation, the AirPods Max one-up them with ANC, with Transparency mode, with various additional features. And of course, they’re wireless.

That means that for the Elegia to serve a purpose in my collection, they have to sound better than the AirPods Max. After all, if they sound on par or worse than the APM, then they serve no purpose to me and aren’t worth owning, given the feature advantages of the APM.

So did they achieve their goal?

They sure did!

I think people have gone over this ad nauseam in other discussions, but the APM sound…good. That’s it. Good. Not great. By consumer headphone standards, they’re very good. But in the audiophile world, they’re merely fine to good. They’re feature-rich, have all sorts of incredible conveniences, are pretty comfortable, and even the FR sounds pretty well balanced, and yet they lack soul. They aren’t particularly detailed and they don’t have a real sonic presence.

In steps the Elegia.

They aren’t wireless, they don’t have the feature set of the APM, and their FR doesn’t sound as well balanced or complete as the APM, and yet the Elegia sound quite a bit better to my ear. They’re more detailed, have a richer sound, and vocals in particular have a sonic presence that I just don’t get when listening to the APM.

So putting all of that together and that’s a success in my book.

I’m really quite happy with the Elegia thus far. All the non-sound stuff is amaking (build, comfort, aesthetics, etc…) and the sound is very good as well. I haven’t yet made my way into the world of HifiMan Aryas and Focal Clears and LCD-X’s and HD800S’s, but from where I stand in the world of mid-fi audio, the Focal Elegia sound great.


My 2 cents.

 

[gryffe]

Hi, forgive me if this has been covered before but I've just started reading through this 282 page thread today after taking delivery of my my Elegias, and what I am going to ask quite probably wont even be discussed anywhere in those 282 pages!!
I got them on Amazon for £399 as they are shop demo from a hifi retailer (they currently seem to be retailing with all the main UK dealers for between £429 to £499). They look brand spanking new and sound absolutely amazing, possibly because being ex demo they have loosened up/burned in etc. The one thing I have noticed though is that the stock Focal cable is plain black, and all the review pictures from back in 2018 show a sort of black and white striped cable. Anybody know if the cable changed at some point during the years the Elegias were produced?

Thanks

 

[Lx3A]

Hi, forgive me if this has been covered before but I've just started reading through this 282 page thread today after taking delivery of my my Elegias. I got them on Amazon for £399 as they are shop demo from a hifi retailer (they currently seem to be retailing with the main UK dealers for between £429 to £499). They look brand spanking new and sound absolutely amazing, possibly because being ex demo they have loosened up/burned in etc. The one thing I have noticed though is that the stock Focal cable is plain black, and all the review pictures from back in 2018 show a sort of black and white striped cable. Anybody know if the cable changed at some point during they years the Elegias were produced?

Thanks

Yes, focal started using that cable you have at some point. I bought mine from a dealer and requested a replacement about a year ago. Ended up with the one you are describing.

 

[gryffe]

Yes, focal started using that cable you have at some point. I bought mine from a dealer and requested a replacement about a year ago. Ended up with the one you are describing.

Excellent, thanks for the quick reply. I was hoping this would be the answer, although tinged with slight disappointment because the black and white cables look a lot cooler.