after a quick test run in a french shop, I'm fairly disappointed with these headphones.
I was expecting much more from Focal (my main loudspeakers are Focal 826W 30th anniversary ed).
Basically, I think they are just average closed cans. It sounds average and it looks average.
The web photos look much better than the actual product, they feel light, but in a plasticky way. At least they are comfortable, the pressure is good, I guess one can walk around with these.
To my ears, low-mids are forward. It doesn't seem to go really deep and there's no sparkle in the highs. Not bad with vocals but it sounded congested and it's definitely a closed (claustrophobic ?) headphone.
Maybe in real-life noisy situations, they can outshine other closed cans as Dathisper seem to appreciate them, but after a few minutes, I lost interest. It just didn't sound any special to me. Felt like an average closed headphone, nothing is really terrible, but nothing is great also.
the sources I used for testing were a Cowon J3 (decent portable source) and a Samsung Galaxy s2 (pretty bad source) with flacs & mp3s >256. I'm usually using Senn IE8 iem in the bus/subway and Denon D5000 at work.
tracks played & some impressions :
Hendrix - Little Wing : ok. the song is awesome, the hp is average. works for me, but I was expecting some Focal 'magic' touch...let's try another track.
Aga Zaryan - Daydream (live at Palladium) : obviously the Spirit One doesn't go deep enough (there's a great double bass on this track). disappointing
Patricia Barber - Let it Rain (live) : ok - good. (song starts with some claps, we can hear the audience then a nice voice and a guitar. The start of the song sounded nice with the focal hp)
Andrew Schenck - Barber - Adagio for strings : sounds bad. weird reverb. highs lack sparkle. next track. quick.
Lorin Maazel, cleveland orchestra - Prokoviev's Romeo & Juliet - The quarrel (symphonic track with high dynamics) : super muddy, a mess.
)EIB( Bad Company - Four Days (drum&bass track with wide freq range and complex layered bass and sub-bass) : sloppy, bloated. boring.
I had high hopes for this closed hp for commuting, but I'll stick with my iem without any regrets for now.