[leftside]

Compare Focal to Audeze when it comes to after market support. Huge difference.

 

[teknorob23]

Even if i’m not bothered by my Stellias getting nasty i feel same way to this issue. And Focal’s attitude. It really sucks.
Below some pictures my apple watch band, which is Finnish Elk leather and costs 50euros. It has been everyday contact with my skin...

Yep its daft on their part. I work with brands on their marketing for a living, and this a is a bit of typical mistake made be business which is led by product people, who believe they’re product is the best and that consumers will keep buying purely because it’s the best. This is an admirable aspiration but when you get to the pinnacle with the totl products “best” generally becomes a matter of small and often subjective margins, at which point buyers brand loyalty can quite often be a deciding factor in buying one totl over another. And a brand can’t always be at the top of the game, because someone else will have made a technical advance and that’s when you need your loyal customers to support the brand. And if they haven’t invested in customer service or caring about customer satisfaction then they’ll be in trouble.

For example I bet they didn’t see the verite closed coming and Zach at Zmf offers incredible levels of customer service plus he’s made a headphone that many will argue is better than the stellias which has to have stolen sales from Focal.

The other thing is they should be nurturing their opinion formers or brand advocates, ie. probably a large proportion of this thread because I bet everyone on here is the person that their friends ask for advice when they’re buying headphones or hifi in general. We can be their best and cheapest sales people, if they engage with us in a 2 way conversation about the product.

They should take a leaf out some of the new wave headfi Iem brands like
Empire ears, effect audio or custom arts, lime ears etc, who listen to their headfi audiences as part of the product development process. These new companies will eat the old hifi world brands alive if they’re not careful.

Sorry that turned into proper rant, I’ll get back in my box

 

[Earbones]

Again, I'd really caution anyone trying to make the leather bits on the Stellia "look new".

This is not car leather, even the finest of which is essentially plasticized. This is closer to leather you might find from Hermes. It is absolutely going to stain and look uneven and unsightly at first. But it will blend into a beautiful patina in a few years.

Do what you want, but I'd strongly advise patience. Expect an eventual patina similar to these examples:

 

[donkeywalker]

Yep its daft on their part. I work with brands on their marketing for a living, and this a is a bit of typical mistake made be business which is led by product people, who believe they’re product is the best and that consumers will keep buying purely because it’s the best. This is an admirable aspiration but when you get to the pinnacle with the totl products “best” generally becomes a matter of small and often subjective margins, at which point buyers brand loyalty can quite often be a deciding factor in buying one totl over another. And a brand can’t always be at the top of the game, because someone else will have made a technical advance and that’s when you need your loyal customers to support the brand. And if they haven’t invested in customer service or caring about customer satisfaction then they’ll be in trouble.

For example I bet they didn’t see the verite closed coming and Zach at Zmf offers incredible levels of customer service plus he’s made a headphone that many will argue is better than the stellias which has to have stolen sales from Focal.

The other thing is they should be nurturing their opinion formers or brand advocates, ie. probably a large proportion of this thread because I bet everyone on here is the person that their friends ask for advice when they’re buying headphones or hifi in general. We can be their best and cheapest sales people, if they engage with us in a 2 way conversation about the product.

They should take a leaf out some of the new wave headfi Iem brands like
Empire ears, effect audio or custom arts, lime ears etc, who listen to their headfi audiences as part of the product development process. These new companies will eat the old hifi world brands alive if they’re not careful.

Sorry that turned into proper rant, I’ll get back in my box

Focal's design language and overall branding attitude is outdated. Most luxury brands these days - Leica, Prada, IWC watch, etc are spending a lot of time and $ to see how they can still be relevant to GenZ moving forward, and GenZ's first attitude toward brand is to see them as servant and see them as a medium for social cause, and they endorse honestly, transparency. Focal is completely missing the upcoming cultural zeitgeist as a brand, it still thinks luxury just means layer and layer of animal leather and campaign with rich looking people drinking wines and wearing leather clothes, to the extend that I don't think someone higher up there really care about their brand. But this is also understandable from an old company's perspective. To me they didn't really ship products, they shipped their org-chart to their customers - the cable is made by some department that admires Beats by Dre, their driver is made by aspiring audio engineer and scientist, their leather is made by an intern, and their packaging looks like made by a consultancy shop that has leftover sketch and concept work they didn't use for Bvlgari. And don't even get me started on that "carrying" case

 

[up late]

the stellia looked and felt luxurious to me (for a headphone). the packaging also appears befitting of a premium personal audio product imo.

 

[boxster233]

the stellia looked and felt luxurious to me (for a headphone). the packaging also appears befitting of a premium personal audio product imo.

Absolutely agree. Focal does a fine job with the visual design of their products. They aren’t for everyone, but no design is.

 

[Ilomaenkimi]

Again, I'd really caution anyone trying to make the leather bits on the Stellia "look new".

This is not car leather, even the finest of which is essentially plasticized. This is closer to leather you might find from Hermes. It is absolutely going to stain and look uneven and unsightly at first. But it will blend into a beautiful patina in a few years.

Do what you want, but I'd strongly advise patience. Expect an eventual patina similar to these examples:

I have no problems with my Stellias getting nasty.
Pictures i shared earlier shows that "stains" are expanding pretty fast. I listen Stellias almost everyday, about one hour at the time. Sometimes two.
I will wait that patina.
First picture was taken 17. january 2020 and second was taken 7. March 2020.
Three months only passed. There's not even need for patience?

Edit: should i listen music that makes me sweat? Or eat lot's of chili while listening?

 

[teknorob23]

Absolutely agree. Focal does a fine job with the visual design of their products. They aren’t for everyone, but no design is.

I have no argument over the physical design just the flawed process they’ve used and the attitude they have to customer interaction and service. A brand is the sum of many parts not just the product. This isn’t a hatchet job on the stellia’s, they stand as my favourite headphone sound wise to date

Again, I'd really caution anyone trying to make the leather bits on the Stellia "look new".

This is not car leather, even the finest of which is essentially plasticized. This is closer to leather you might find from Hermes. It is absolutely going to stain and look uneven and unsightly at first. But it will blend into a beautiful patina in a few years.

Do what you want, but I'd strongly advise patience. Expect an eventual patina similar to these examples:

I get the sentiment but again to me this demonstrates a misunderstanding of your core target audience which is likely to be a headfi enthusiast. Focal may desire an customer base who own a collection of Hermes handbags, but they don’t market to this audience so it’s more likely to be 40+ bald men who are in to headfi, who are unlikly to keep them long enough to realise their beauty in 25 years time. In the meantime they stain like the picture above and if you want to sell, perhaps to finance a new focal purchase, you lose half the value.

BMW design their cars with the expectation of selling them 3 times, once new and twice second hand, so resale is a big motivation in the original design and choice of materials. I know there are some who buy a pair of headphones for life but I’d be will to bet for the majority it’s likely to be 6-18 month purchase, so resale value is paramount. You only have to look at the market for used utopias which have often had multiple previous owners.

Focal are deluded if they think the Hermes
customer is going to have heard of them let alone pick up a pair on their way to pick up new hand bag.

Ignore your core customers at your peril!

 

[donkeywalker]

I have no argument over the physical design just the flawed process they’ve used and the attitude they have to customer interaction and service. A brand is the sum of many parts not just the product. This isn’t a hatchet job on the stellia’s, they stand as my favourite headphone sound wise to date



I get the sentiment but again to me this demonstrates a misunderstanding of your core target audience which is likely to be a headfi enthusiast. Focal may desire an customer base who own a collection of Hermes handbags, but they don’t market to this audience so it’s more likely to be 40+ bald men who are in to headfi, who are unlikly to keep them long enough to realise their beauty in 25 years time. In the meantime they stain like the picture above and if you want to sell, perhaps to finance a new focal purchase, you lose half the value.

BMW design their cars with the expectation of selling them 3 times, once new and twice second hand, so resale is a big motivation in the original design and choice of materials. I know there are some who buy a pair of headphones for life but I’d be will to bet for the majority it’s likely to be 6-18 month purchase, so resale value is paramount. You only have to look at the market for used utopias which have often had multiple previous owners.

Focal are deluded if they think the Hermes
customer is going to have heard of them let alone pick up a pair on their way to pick up new hand bag.

Ignore your core customers at your peril!

It doesn’t seem like Stellia’s marketing materials are targeted toward audiophile , non of Stellia website’s models look like the average audiophile but they seem to have big Ad campaign with headfi, furthering my thesis that their marketing product engineering design QA support sales team all work in 7 different silos

 

[teknorob23]

It doesn’t seem like Stellia’s marketing materials are targeted toward audiophile , non of Stellia website’s models look like the average audiophile but they seem to have big Ad campaign with headfi, furthering my thesis that their marketing product engineering design QA support sales team all work in 7 different silos

I agree and this doesn’t seem to be uncommon with hifi brands. I think this generally comes down to the fact they’re marketing teams or often the least resourced area of the business.

 

[up late]

a lot of "theorising" going on here. i guess i must be in the minority of head-fi'ers who holds on to their headphones - not that i've seen any statistical evidence to support that claim.

 

[Earbones]

I get the sentiment but again to me this demonstrates a misunderstanding of your core target audience which is likely to be a headfi enthusiast. Focal may desire an customer base who own a collection of Hermes handbags, but they don’t market to this audience so it’s more likely to be 40+ bald men who are in to headfi, who are unlikly to keep them long enough to realise their beauty in 25 years time. In the meantime they stain like the picture above and if you want to sell, perhaps to finance a new focal purchase, you lose half the value.

BMW design their cars with the expectation of selling them 3 times, once new and twice second hand, so resale is a big motivation in the original design and choice of materials. I know there are some who buy a pair of headphones for life but I’d be will to bet for the majority it’s likely to be 6-18 month purchase, so resale value is paramount. You only have to look at the market for used utopias which have often had multiple previous owners.

Focal are deluded if they think the Hermes
customer is going to have heard of them let alone pick up a pair on their way to pick up new hand bag.

Ignore your core customers at your peril!

I definitely understand your point, and I agree with you. I can see why somebody at Focal might have thought using such nice leather was a good thing, in theory. But like you point out, using a material simply because it's objectively very nice isn't always the best move, particularly if the material presents issues which may effect the resale value of a product that has a high likelihood of being resold.

My point wasn't intended to comment on the wiseness of Focal's choice of material, but merely to point out that the specific leather is what it is. It's a very thin, finely grained, French calfskin leather, and unless I miss my guess, vegetable-tanned. Sealers and conditioners are not going to be the best for it, unless you are happy ending up with a dark, dull color.

In any event, I recommend a natural product like Hoegaardener70 used... you definitely don't want a chemical-based leather treatment on your skin for hours at a time. That said, you want to be very frugal with whatever natural product you settle on. If you use just a little too much, natural products can go rancid in very thin leather, depending on the climate.

Anyway, if one intends on keeping these headphones for a long time, then I still think waiting for a patina may be the best option. Even Ilomaenkimi's severely stained leather will eventually develop a more even patina. But yes, I understand that trying to sell them as they are now would be difficult for him, ha ha.

Leather patina is the result of sunlight and stains- very often sweat and body oils. It's funny that people love the patina of old Ghurka bags or vintage Hermes, and pay top-dollar... While oblivious to what actually caused that gorgeous patina. I guess it's kind of like a sausage situation... They are lovely with eggs, if you've never seen them made.

 

[teknorob23]

a lot of "theorising" going on here. i guess i must be in the minority of head-fi'ers who holds on to their headphones - not that i've seen any statistical evidence to support that claim.

Of course there’s going to be a split if people who keep and those who roll kit. I’m unapologetic about being in the later camp. I love music but kit comes a close second. And you only have to watch the classifieds here to see I’m not alone.

I don’t work with focal but I have now felt with various people in the company and with their uk distributor. Being a brand nerd if have also read a lot about the company. I do actually work with a couple of well known hifi brands whos products frequent these pages, so yes there’s some theorising going on but hopefully it’s based on some degree of knowledge and experience.

I think focal’s attitude from a brand marketing perspective is partially born out by their absence on this and other threads dedicated to their products and inhabited by scores of potential advocates. This is a ready formed focus group made up of its core target audience.

Look how chord for example communicate on here via Rob Watts, or empire ears who invited key contributors from headfi in to theIt r&d for new products. Now I’m not saying all brands should act the same, but in the new marketing world which spends 96 pence in its advertising pound with Facebook and google, being able to have an effective 2 way conversation with your customers is going to be the key to survival and growth.

Sorry I hope as I say this doesn’t read like have an axe to grind with focal, sadly they’re are more typical than an anomaly in among old school hifi companies. The majority of my contributions to this thread have been glowing endorsement of a product I love, but I’d be lying if I said this felt anything more than unrequited

 

[Ilomaenkimi]

Even Ilomaenkimi's severely stained leather will eventually develop a more even patina. But yes, I understand that trying to sell them as they are now would be difficult for him, ha ha.

Seriously; why an earth i would sell them? One of the best headphones ever made.Imo.
And closed back. Holy grail for me. I'm not gonna sell Stellias. Never.
If in the future for some weird reason I want to different(better?) soundquality, i will buy another pair of headphones.
Stellias are here to stay.

 

[up late]

Of course there’s going to be a split if people who keep and those who roll kit. I’m unapologetic about being in the later camp. I love music but kit comes a close second. And you only have to watch the classifieds here to see I’m not alone.

I don’t work with focal but I have now felt with various people in the company and with their uk distributor. Being a brand nerd if have also read a lot about the company. I do actually work with a couple of well known hifi brands whos products frequent these pages, so yes there’s some theorising going on but hopefully it’s based on some degree of knowledge and experience.

I think focal’s attitude from a brand marketing perspective is partially born out by their absence on this and other threads dedicated to their products and inhabited by scores of potential advocates. This is a ready formed focus group made up of its core target audience.

Look how chord for example communicate on here via Rob Watts, or empire ears who invited key contributors from headfi in to theIt r&d for new products. Now I’m not saying all brands should act the same, but in the new marketing world which spends 96 pence in its advertising pound with Facebook and google, being able to have an effective 2 way conversation with your customers is going to be the key to survival and growth.

Sorry I hope as I say this doesn’t read like have an axe to grind with focal, sadly they’re are more typical than an anomaly in among old school hifi companies. The majority of my contributions to this thread have been glowing endorsement of a product I love, but I’d be lying if I said this felt anything more than unrequited

i wasn't singling you out in my post but seeing as you've quoted it, you wrote (amongst other things) that "I know there are some who buy a pair of headphones for life but I’d be will to bet for the majority it’s likely to be 6-18 month purchase, so resale value is paramount. You only have to look at the market for used utopias which have often had multiple previous owners". no offence intended but in the absence of any credible supporting data, i'm treating your statement as conjecture.