Focal Elear Headphone Review

[gene]

Focal, the legendary French speaker manufacturer will drastically up its headphone game with new launches later this month. Utopia and Elear are about to hit the market as two very high-end headphones that will be made in France at an all-new production line at Focal's manufacturing facility. The new models have been three years in development and Focal has been able to keep them off the radar - until now.

In this exclusive first published review, we examine the Elear, the headphone that will likely garner the most attention at launch as it seems to be in the sweet-spot of high-end quality with an affordable price.

Read: Focal Elear Headphone Review

 

[corey]

50-hour break-in?

 

[Wayde Robson]

50-hour break-in?

Yeah. It's one of things... I anticipate my review being read by some of our friends over at Head-Fi.org, many of them believe in oddball things. Like how a cable sounds for instance.

I've seen opinions on sound quality totally discounted because the reviewer never mentioned a proper "break in" period.

Personally, I believe "break-in" is a placebo. Or, it could be tuning of their own perception. I don't believe most speaker or headphone manufacturers would approve of "break-in".

 

[corey]

I think it was an Audioholics article that suggested that the speaker manufacturer's QC testing should provide sufficient break in. I'm a careful guy, so I always give my speakers an extra 100,000 cycles - after all at 5Khz it only takes an additional 20 seconds.

Wayde, I refer you to your masthead: "Pursuing the Truth ....".

Even after Galileo faced the Catholic Inquisition he is reputed to have said "And yet it moves".

 

[tyhjaarpa]

Yeah. It's one of things... I anticipate my review being read by some of our friends over at Head-Fi.org, many of them believe in oddball things. Like how a cable sounds for instance.

I've seen opinions on sound quality totally discounted because the reviewer never mentioned a proper "break in" period.

Personally, I believe "break-in" is a placebo. Or, it could be tuning of their own perception. I don't believe most speaker or headphone manufacturers would approve of "break-in".

I auditioned HD600 before I bought mine and when I got them home and blugged in they sounded awful compared to pair I auditioned at shop, I let them run for 2 hours at moderate level and tried them again and the sound I heard at shop were now there without the awful harshness they had straight from the box.

 

[Wayde Robson]

I auditioned HD600 before I bought mine and when I got them home and blugged in they sounded awful compared to pair I auditioned at shop, I let them run for 2 hours at moderate level and tried them again and the sound I heard at shop were now there without the awful harshness they had straight from the box.

I have no doubt it's true for some people. I don't know why exactly, is it structural tensile cohesion of the driver parts inside the headphone, pacebo or audible tuning effect in the individual? Or is it a combination of everything? And... it could be different case-by-case. Who is to say. I am certainly not a proponent of denying oneself whatever it takes to love your audio.

This article has got the attention of CanJam, coordinators want Audioholics to cover the events. I wonder if there is more appetite for headphone reviews, news and opinion from Audioholics? It's certainly a booming market and I know we do some here.

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Great review! I especially enjoyed that you compared to an lcd-3 as that's what I currently own. Mine however is pre-fazor and not sure if yours is too. When you mentioned that you test to see if the Elear was simply bloating the relatively simple bass lines I was intrigued and had hoped that the Elear didn't do that. My experience recently with the new beyerdynamic t5p.2 ended in a bad way after realizing that was its nature. A shame to hear it's not on par with the grado in terms of imaging. I had assumed it would be after seeing the nature of the driver. I'm not sure it really bothers me too much though as sometimes eschewing this can make some genres flow better with the auditory senses. The maturity of fancier recordings generally grasps and relies on the leading edges playing the virgin role of never touching one another to portray it's visual up bringing.

 

[speedyarsenal]

I just got them yesterday from audio46 ... I love them without the 50 hour burn time now so Im sure to like them better in a few days

 

[sszorin]

I think it was an Audioholics article that suggested that the speaker manufacturer's QC testing should provide sufficient break in. I'm a careful guy, so I always give my speakers an extra 100,000 cycles - after all at 5Khz it only takes an additional 20 seconds.

Wayde, I refer you to your masthead: "Pursuing the Truth ....".

Even after Galileo faced the Catholic Inquisition he is reputed to have said "And yet it moves".

No, Galileo did not say : “And yet it moves”; instead Galileo admitted that he was wrong and that the Church was right.