[oldkid]

Hello guys,
I just had a change to listen to the Elex yesterday. The headphone had a "bouncy" sound that I have never met on any other headphones. Especially the drum, I think i could feel the elasticity of the drum surface bounding back and forth after being hit. And the microdynamic was even better than on the HD800 that lacked the volume graduation compared to the Elex. I don't know how Focal can make it And it's a stunning sounding property. I want to ask if the Eclear has that "bouncing" sounding property from the Elex ? Tks

I think what you discribe as "bouncy" is due to the incredible amount of travel the drivers can do on this headphones. Percussions are shockingly realistic on it as a result. You can hear each drum being hit not just as one tap but also separate attack and decay following each tap.
You should absolutely listen to live music in DSD on the Elex, you will completely discover albums you thought you knew perfectly in a whole new light.

 

[b0lt 0ns]

so is it normal for these to have the drivers clip (badly) at higher volumes? I actually dozed off listening to these last night and a song came on and they sounded like they were rattling themselves out of the housing it was so bad they woke me up. the volume wasnt that high and certainly not as high as i listen to some of my other phones none of which distort like this.

 

[dougms3]

so is it normal for these to have the drivers clip (badly) at higher volumes? I actually dozed off listening to these last night and a song came on and they sounded like they were rattling themselves out of the housing it was so bad they woke me up. the volume wasnt that high and certainly not as high as i listen to some of my other phones none of which distort like this.

In my experience, the clipping is a sign of the voice coil solder joint failing.

 

[b0lt 0ns]

In my experience, the clipping is a sign of the voice coil solder joint failing.

On some songs its both that clip other times its one. This is my second set that I just received yesterday. the first set came with a dead left driver. I love the sound of them at non clipping volume but if this is normal i cant see keeping these I regularly listen at volumes that make these clip.

 

[dougms3]

On some songs its both that clip other times its one. This is my second set that I just received yesterday. the first set came with a dead left driver. I love the sound of them at non clipping volume but if this is normal i cant see keeping these I regularly listen at volumes that make these clip.

This is a common problem with all the focal headphones but mostly the elex because it uses a thinner voice coil wire than the clear.

Even the utopia is not immune to this problem.

A little background on what I did. I wanted to upgrade the driver wire in the clear to mundorf silver/gold 18awg to see how much an improvement it would yield in sound quality. The simple answer is, it yielded a very significant improvement. The problem is that it seems to have accelerated the voice coil wire solder joint failure, left driver died a day after I swapped the wire. At this point I was not aware of the driver failure as a known problem. Luckily for me the joint just lost continuity and the wire was still intact. So I carefully removed the silicon insulation and desoldered the joint and resoldered using mundorf supreme solder.

This brought the driver back to life but it was clipping. I opened it up to examine the joint again, in the tiny blue circle you can see I was a bit sloppy with my soldering. Its a delicate joint and I had trouble soldering it due to the size of the wire and my shaky hands. I adjusted it so that the joint held as much wire as possible without the tip sticking out like in the pic. This fixed the clipping issue.

Secondary problem, the left driver with the mundorf solder sounded alot better than the right side with the stock solder. I really did not want to do the other side as it was nerve racking to resolder it. But after a week, I couldn't ignore it any more, the channel imbalance was too great, so I ended up resoldering the right side as well.

This is how I know that the solder that focal uses on the voice coil wire is trash. I speculated whether it was the silicon insulation that was the issue but its definitely the solder. I don't know what kind of solder it is but it is not good, pretty much all of the solder they use on the clear and elex is just crap.

Since I'm pretty decent at soldering, it wasn't too much of a problem for me, I can do this very easily now but for others that dont know how to solder, it will be a problem. Its a fairly easy fix as long as the wire doesn't pop, sound quality improvement was definitely worth it though. I now have about 3 months daily driving the headphones after doing this with no issues with my clear.

 

[b0lt 0ns]

i have some pretty good soldering equipment but i really dont feel like tearing apart a brand new pair of headphones to modify them in hopes they work properly lol. i managed to get it to stop clipping with -6db on the preamp. it needs -11db on a harman EQ curve to not clip. i dont have an actual DB meter but according the the app on my phone its clipping at 88-90db.

 

[dougms3]

i have some pretty good soldering equipment but i really dont feel like tearing apart a brand new pair of headphones to modify them in hopes they work properly lol. i managed to get it to stop clipping with -6db on the preamp. it needs -11db on a harman EQ curve to not clip. i dont have an actual DB meter but according the the app on my phone its clipping at 88-90db.

Its up to you.

For longevity, I recommend resoldering if you can, the sound quality improvement is worth it alone. But if its clipping now, it will most likely fail at some point down the road, maybe not immediately but eventually. There may also be a secondary problem with oxidation of the voil coil, I'm not sure if its related but some one reported a large green oxidation spot on the voice coil that killed the bass on his headphones. Because of the open design of the headphones, the voice coil is bound to oxidize somewhat but if its concentrated in one spot that indicates weak or uneven current distribution.

My assumption is that its due to the reduced flow of current due to that voice coil wire solder joint.

 

[tamleo]

This is a common problem with all the focal headphones but mostly the elex because it uses a thinner voice coil wire than the clear.

Even the utopia is not immune to this problem.

A little background on what I did. I wanted to upgrade the driver wire in the clear to mundorf silver/gold 18awg to see how much an improvement it would yield in sound quality. The simple answer is, it yielded a very significant improvement. The problem is that it seems to have accelerated the voice coil wire solder joint failure, left driver died a day after I swapped the wire. At this point I was not aware of the driver failure as a known problem. Luckily for me the joint just lost continuity and the wire was still intact. So I carefully removed the silicon insulation and desoldered the joint and resoldered using mundorf supreme solder.

This brought the driver back to life but it was clipping. I opened it up to examine the joint again, in the tiny blue circle you can see I was a bit sloppy with my soldering. Its a delicate joint and I had trouble soldering it due to the size of the wire and my shaky hands. I adjusted it so that the joint held as much wire as possible without the tip sticking out like in the pic. This fixed the clipping issue.

Secondary problem, the left driver with the mundorf solder sounded alot better than the right side with the stock solder. I really did not want to do the other side as it was nerve racking to resolder it. But after a week, I couldn't ignore it any more, the channel imbalance was too great, so I ended up resoldering the right side as well.

This is how I know that the solder that focal uses on the voice coil wire is trash. I speculated whether it was the silicon insulation that was the issue but its definitely the solder. I don't know what kind of solder it is but it is not good, pretty much all of the solder they use on the clear and elex is just crap.

Since I'm pretty decent at soldering, it wasn't too much of a problem for me, I can do this very easily now but for others that dont know how to solder, it will be a problem. Its a fairly easy fix as long as the wire doesn't pop, sound quality improvement was definitely worth it though. I now have about 3 months daily driving the headphones after doing this with no issues with my clear.

May i ask why the solder quality affects clipping issue? Isn’t it driver design side affect?

 

[senorx12562]

May i ask why the solder quality affects clipping issue? Isn’t it driver design side affect?

Focal claims that it is an intentional design choice to limit driver excursion. It has happened w/ my Elex a few times when I switched sources with different volume settings unintentionally. Wasn't on my head thankfully, but I heard it from abt 5 ft away. It was a couple years ago, and they still work great, so the voice coil issue referenced above is certainly not a given once it clips.

 

[dougms3]

May i ask why the solder quality affects clipping issue? Isn’t it driver design side affect?

The problem with the solder on the voice coil wire is that it is losing continuity which seems to be increasing resistance on the wire and causing a hot spot in some cases. Thats why some of the driver wires pop instead of just going dead.

The driver design is pretty straight forward, its designed like a mini version of a traditional speaker.

While researching the clipping / driver failure issue, I also found that more than a few people experience this with some of the focal car speakers as well.

 

[dougms3]

Focal claims that it is an intentional design choice to limit driver excursion. It has happened w/ my Elex a few times when I switched sources with different volume settings unintentionally. Wasn't on my head thankfully, but I heard it from abt 5 ft away. It was a couple years ago, and they still work great, so the voice coil issue referenced above is certainly not a given once it clips.

Lol they told you the clipping is intentional and you believe them without question?

I can crank up the volume on my clear very high and it does not clip. I'd love to hear an explanation of why it doesn't clip, if they "designed" it to clip.

Judging by the amount of elex's for sale on ebay where either one or both drivers are dead should indicate something. Just because you've been lucky with your set doesn't mean that there isn't a problem.

My guess is that they have alot of this crappy solder which they are not just going to throw out. The accountants will weigh the cost of whether its cheaper to replace the solder or allow a certain % of failures and cover the warranty fix, in the long run focal benefits because people will buy another headphone when it fails eventually. I'm sure they don't want to admit its a problem because someone needs to take accountability for that. In today's corporate world, I'd imagine employees will point fingers at each other rather than accept any blame and allow the customers to bear the brunt of their mistake and drag the company reputation into the dirt.

I think they screwed up because there are more failures than they expected.

 

[b0lt 0ns]

If this is an issue with even their 4300 dollar utopias because its an "intentional design" that turns me off to utopias because from what I read about them those were gonna be my first TOTL headphone but not if this is what I have to look forward to. Maybe this is why nobody else uses the driver style they do.

 

[senorx12562]

Lol they told you the clipping is intentional and you believe them without question?

I can crank up the volume on my clear very high and it does not clip. I'd love to hear an explanation of why it doesn't clip, if they "designed" it to clip.

Judging by the amount of elex's for sale on ebay where either one or both drivers are dead should indicate something. Just because you've been lucky with your set doesn't mean that there isn't a problem.

My guess is that they have alot of this crappy solder which they are not just going to throw out. The accountants will weigh the cost of whether its cheaper to replace the solder or allow a certain % of failures and cover the warranty fix, in the long run focal benefits because people will buy another headphone when it fails eventually. I'm sure they don't want to admit its a problem because someone needs to take accountability for that. In today's corporate world, I'd imagine employees will point fingers at each other rather than accept any blame and allow the customers to bear the brunt of their mistake and drag the company reputation into the dirt.

I think they screwed up because there are more failures than they expected.

Not sure why you chose me to be your straw man. I never said I believe them at all, let alone without question. Lol indeed. I was only reporting their explanation. Nor did I claim that there is not a problem. At all. Only what my experience has been. I suppose you will next accuse me of lying. Who whizzed in your Cheerios? Are you always this way?

 

[dougms3]

Not sure why you chose me to be your straw man. I never said I believe them at all, let alone without question. Lol indeed. I was only reporting their explanation. Nor did I claim that there is not a problem. At all. Only what my experience has been. I suppose you will next accuse me of lying. Who whizzed in your Cheerios? Are you always this way?

You chose yourself to be my straw man, whatever that means. You "reported" that they intentionally designed it to clip. I asked if you believe that. You never said you didn't believe them either. Getting a bit defensive there aren't ya?

You suppose too much as if I had to ask for your opinion on this subject. I'm only sharing what I've discovered from my experience with this issue and some conjecture of what the situation is. Your experience with this issue is ask focal, like they would tell you truth lol.

I don't live with psychos that would whizz in anything I eat but you speak as if thats a common occurence in your world. What way should I be? Apparently, theres a problem with me questioning something that doesn't make sense.

Focal claims that it is an intentional design choice to limit driver excursion. It has happened w/ my Elex a few times when I switched sources with different volume settings unintentionally. Wasn't on my head thankfully, but I heard it from abt 5 ft away. It was a couple years ago, and they still work great, so the voice coil issue referenced above is certainly not a given once it clips.

Wasn't going to bring this up but since you want to "be that way". Heard clipping on your headphones from 5 ft away you say?

 

[b0lt 0ns]

You chose yourself to be my straw man, whatever that means. You "reported" that they intentionally designed it to clip. I asked if you believe that. You never said you didn't believe them either. Getting a bit defensive there aren't ya?

You suppose too much as if I had to ask for your opinion on this subject. I'm only sharing what I've discovered from my experience with this issue and some conjecture of what the situation is. Your experience with this issue is ask focal, like they would tell you truth lol.

I don't live with psychos that would whizz in anything I eat but you speak as if thats a common occurence in your world. What way should I be? Apparently, theres a problem with me questioning something that doesn't make sense.



Wasn't going to bring this up but since you want to "be that way". Heard clipping on your headphones from 5 ft away you say?

Not gonna lie mine clipped loud enough to wake me up (on my head) so I wouldn't be surprised if it was vaguely audible from a couple feet since if it's actually a mechanical contact that I understood it to be?