[PrestonSturgesEnthusiast]

Hello people long time no see.

I have a very specific life or death question here: Is Focal Elear a *clear* update from DT 1990 pro (for metal music)?

I own 1990 pro with dekoni velour pads for metal music, I have no complaints. I enjoy using it daily for hours, BUT Im seeing a good deal for a used Elear and would like to go for it, BUT I will not unless its *clearly* better sound wise than DT 1990! I am mostly listening tech death like Obscura and First Fragment an prog death like

Thank you in advance!

Man, that song is great.

 

[NexusOne]

Does anyone use the Utopia for metal? Or is a Clear / Elear the better choice?

 

[steve468]

Does anyone use the Utopia for metal? Or is a Clear / Elear the better choice?

I've owned both, though not at the same time. If I remember correctly, I never really liked the Clear with metal - it seemed a little too, I don't know, dull, maybe smoothed over in the mids. I thought it was much better with acoustic music.

However, the Utopia has really surprised me with metal. The impact of drums and cymbals, the crunch and detail and tactility of the guitars, man, it's an experience! For me it's up there with my previous metal champion, the LCD-4, just in a different way.

 

[vonBaron]

Does anyone use the Utopia for metal? Or is a Clear / Elear the better choice?

Utopia are great HP for metal, Clear Mg to with Utopia pads.

 

[Kimmeri]

Do people with Focal Elear experience that driver clipping when listening on higher volume?

 

[cummje]

I think a lot of Audeze hate is (rightfully) directed at the memory foam earpads that they used for a while (I don't know exact dates but they started maybe roughly the 5 years before the 2021 revisions?). In 2021 they switched over to a lighter foam which doesn't kill the upper mids nearly as much. I still EQ that region up a tiny bit on mine but the thing with planars, and especially Audezes, is that they take extremely well to EQ. On most of my dynamic driver phones any time I EQ something I always feel like I'm losing something (even if the tradeoff is worth it). Not so on the Audezes. I'd recommend them for metal if you really value the following things: good headstage, extremely well defined and "right" sounding imaging (including correct sense of scale of everything relatively), tight and well defined bass, good separation, and smooth but well extended treble. These are all the ways I find my LCD-2s to be superior to most of the dynamic driver headphones I've tried, including for metal. Where they they aren't quite as good (but not necessarily bad either), is the sense of engagement. The bass is plenty punchy but guitars don't have quite as much bite. In generally I find dynamic drivers have better dynamics (in terms of contrast between softer and louder passages). I think for the price the LCD-2Fs (not the classic, I didn't really like those) are a really good value as they are easy to drive and don't really care about the source, easy to EQ (so you can experiment with different tonal balances) and are better sounding across all genres than pretty much any dynamic driver headphone less than $1k IMO. I may be a bit biased as I have a bit of a soft spot for wood headphones (if you couldn't tell from my signature)

Thank you for the reply to this and thorough explanation (and apologies for not acknowledging it sooner). I debated getting the limited leather model locally, but then noticed an essentially open box pair of the carbon cupped ones on eBay for a reasonable price and snapped them up as I’d still come out ahead with international shipping. What I didn’t do is check the serial number that the seller had posted in the pictures. When I got them home and had a look, I noticed a manufacturing date of October 2020 stamped on the box, which wasn’t in the sellers pictures, from recollection. I came back to the forum here and looked at the 2021 XC update thread, and realized that I missed the 2021 update by something like 10 units. Which, F, I didn’t even think about because I saw the carbon cups and thought they were the updated model without remembering that they had updated the cups at some point in 2020, and then updated the drivers later on. So I’m going for the updated model, got the older driver with new cups *sigh*. I think I’ll get an RME ADI-2 and just EQ them and be done with it. Though locally an importer had just brought 2021 models into the country… Maybe I can get a pair of Atticus’ at some point to make a pair.

 

[gonintendo]

Thank you for the reply to this and thorough explanation (and apologies for not acknowledging it sooner). I debated getting the limited leather model locally, but then noticed an essentially open box pair of the carbon cupped ones on eBay for a reasonable price and snapped them up as I’d still come out ahead with international shipping. What I didn’t do is check the serial number that the seller had posted in the pictures. When I got them home and had a look, I noticed a manufacturing date of October 2020 stamped on the box, which wasn’t in the sellers pictures, from recollection. I came back to the forum here and looked at the 2021 XC update thread, and realized that I missed the 2021 update by something like 10 units. Which, F, I didn’t even think about because I saw the carbon cups and thought they were the updated model without remembering that they had updated the cups at some point in 2020, and then updated the drivers later on. So I’m going for the updated model, got the older driver with new cups *sigh*. I think I’ll get an RME ADI-2 and just EQ them and be done with it. Though locally an importer had just brought 2021 models into the country… Maybe I can get a pair of Atticus’ at some point to make a pair.

I think a big part of the update sound wise is the new ear pads, which they sell on their site and you should be able to update yourself. But they take eq super well so if you’re happy with how they sound with just eq that’s totally cool too

 

[cummje]

Thank you for the reply to this and thorough explanation (and apologies for not acknowledging it sooner). I debated getting the limited leather model locally, but then noticed an essentially open box pair of the carbon cupped ones on eBay for a reasonable price and snapped them up as I’d still come out ahead with international shipping. What I didn’t do is check the serial number that the seller had posted in the pictures. When I got them home and had a look, I noticed a manufacturing date of October 2020 stamped on the box, which wasn’t in the sellers pictures, from recollection. I came back to the forum here and looked at the 2021 XC update thread, and realized that I missed the 2021 update by something like 10 units. Which, F, I didn’t even think about because I saw the carbon cups and thought they were the updated model without remembering that they had updated the cups at some point in 2020, and then updated the drivers later on. So I’m going for the updated model, got the older driver with new cups *sigh*. I think I’ll get an RME ADI-2 and just EQ them and be done with it. Though locally an importer had just brought 2021 models into the country… Maybe I can get a pair of Atticus’ at some point to make a pair.

I received my 2020 XC’s today. Being more than 6 feet tall and around 200 pounds, when I read about them being heavy I figured I’d probably be OK, but man these things are super heavy.

I’m not really sure how I feel about them. Having read a number of reviews, I knew that they have good sub bass and a bit weak mid bass, which I can pretty much confirm after testing them out for an hour. Keep in mind right now I just have an ifi Dac V2, and no amp to drive these with. That being said the dial doesn’t go up to noon on these for my listening level so they aren’t hard to drive from that perspective. Viscerally the sub base is very nice, but the lack of forward drums is not my personal preference. When I listen to metal I like to hear the drums and these are definitely recessed. I was also just listening to Embers (feat Yoshi Horikawa) on Go Go Penguin’s GGP/RMX album and I can barely hear the bells in the background, and I think they should be way more forward than they really are. I also have a hard time hearing the bass, whereas I can practically feel it vibrating on my cheeks when I listen to this band with my HD660s’ and Deva Pro’s (wired).

Obviously it’s a bit early to decide what I wanna do with them, but F they’re heavy, and unless I want to go RME ADI-2 route to EQ them, I have a feeling they aren’t for me.

Given what I’ve heard about mid-bass I definitely want to try out the Atticus’ now.

 

[tommir]

I received my 2020 XC’s today. Being more than 6 feet tall and around 200 pounds, when I read about them being heavy I figured I’d probably be OK, but man these things are super heavy.

I’m not really sure how I feel about them. Having read a number of reviews, I knew that they have good sub bass and a bit weak mid bass, which I can pretty much confirm after testing them out for an hour. Keep in mind right now I just have an ifi Dac V2, and no amp to drive these with. That being said the dial doesn’t go up to noon on these for my listening level so they aren’t hard to drive from that perspective. Viscerally the sub base is very nice, but the lack of forward drums is not my personal preference. When I listen to metal I like to hear the drums and these are definitely recessed. I was also just listening to Embers (feat Yoshi Horikawa) on Go Go Penguin’s GGP/RMX album and I can barely hear the bells in the background, and I think they should be way more forward than they really are. I also have a hard time hearing the bass, whereas I can practically feel it vibrating on my cheeks when I listen to this band with my HD660s’ and Deva Pro’s (wired).

Obviously it’s a bit early to decide what I wanna do with them, but F they’re heavy, and unless I want to go RME ADI-2 route to EQ them, I have a feeling they aren’t for me.

Given what I’ve heard about mid-bass I definitely want to try out the Atticus’ now.

Well, in my opinion all Audeze's headphones should be equalized. I had XC in the past and sold them. Then had other Audeze's headphones and tried them with EQ - they were great. Unfortuantely I didn't try XC with EQ...

 

[cummje]

Well, in my opinion all Audeze's headphones should be equalized. I had XC in the past and sold them. Then had other Audeze's headphones and tried them with EQ - they were great. Unfortuantely I didn't try XC with EQ...Y

Well, in my opinion all Audeze's headphones should be equalized. I had XC in the past and sold them. Then had other Audeze's headphones and tried them with EQ - they were great. Unfortuantely I didn't try XC with EQ...

Yeah a local shop has RME available to demo so before I go and make a rash decision I’ll heed your advice and give EQ a shot (PC EQ not an option for me at the moment with my setup). Thank you!

 

[marts30]

Hello fellow metal heads I will soon be moving back to work from office and was wondering which closed back headphones are comparable to DT1990s/Grado Hemps? I've really enjoyed the sound of those and wanted something closed back with similar sound signature. Thanks!

I love my 325x for metal, I just got the Rode NTH-100 in and I'm really digging it for closed back. It's not as bright as the Grado but it has really nice mids and I don't find them veiled. Definitely worth looking into for the price. I have the Drop Panda which is closed too and that is decent with metal but I prefer the Rode.

Plus the Rode is really comfortable and built like a tank.

 

[521282]

Well, in my opinion all Audeze's headphones should be equalized. I had XC in the past and sold them. Then had other Audeze's headphones and tried them with EQ - they were great. Unfortuantely I didn't try XC with EQ...

Xc 2021 and the mojo 2 is amazing..

 

[SonicFade]

The Fostex I've used are absolute Classic/Hard Rock monsters--better than the Sundara for less congested music like Rock. However, for fast/aggressive music like Metal, the Fostex create a fatiguing "wall of sound" effect that just can't compete with the layer/detail retrieval of planars like the Sundara. I find the Sundara have an overall cleaner sound while the Fostex is what I put on to really "feel" the music. I've never tried a Beyer.

I think this is an accurate take on the TH900! For metal, it rough. It just doesn’t work out. But when I play some Alice In Chains through them, the way the tracks are produced, it just works so well. Layne’s voice cuts through so well and nothing is too brash. The bass has a “knock” to it that older music typically has, that these headphones execute so well

 

[redwoodaudio]

Hi all, new to headphones, new to this site, very daunted by this 758-page thread, but also quite interested in a good headphone match for the rawness and intensity of metal music. Tool, Sabbath, Metallica, Thee Oh Sees fan here (amongst others).

Do you find that dynamic vs planar vs electrostatic technology best suited for this kind of music in general, or is that not a legit taxonomy for metal music?

 

[SonicFade]

Hi all, new to headphones, new to this site, very daunted by this 758-page thread, but also quite interested in a good headphone match for the rawness and intensity of metal music. Tool, Sabbath, Metallica, Thee Oh Sees fan here (amongst others).

Do you find that dynamic vs planar vs electrostatic technology best suited for this kind of music in general, or is that not a legit taxonomy for metal music?

Dynamic in my experience. I got the LCD x’s and they sounded great, but didn’t have much bass and slam. Part of this has to do with being open back, too.

Do you require beefy bottom end?