Focal Clear headphones add an exciting new “mid-level” addition to Focal’s range of high-end headphones, sitting between the Elear and Utopia.
French manufacturer Focal is a celebrated manufacturer of high quality, high-end loudspeakers and headphones. Offering professional studio monitors for the recording industry, high-end car audio, and Audiophile Hi-Fi loudspeakers & headphones; Focal offer a high-end audio solution for most situations.
Now, Focal offer the latest addition to their high-end headphone range, the Focal Clear; let’s take a look at this exciting addition to Focal’s headphone line…
Focal Clear – bringing the fight to Sennheiser
Our review back in March pitted the Focal Elear, against the excellent Sennheiser HD800s and the astonishing HiFi Man Edition X V2 planar headphones. That review highlighted that the Focal Elear was a strong performer, however, it arguably lacked the detail and extension of its slightly more expensive contemporaries.
With that said, it was a forgivable “shortcoming” bearing in mind the price difference between the Elear and the Sennheiser HD800s was significant. Focal’s issue was that the next model up in their range, the remarkable Utopia, represented a significant jump in price. With it, however, came a significant jump in performance too; the Focal Utopia’s really are incredible headphones.
What was needed, was a mid-level “bridge” between the Focal Elear and the Focal Utopia; a headphone which was capable of meeting the leader in this bracket, the Sennheiser HD800s, and matching it for price and performance. Focal has addressed that gap in the market, with their latest offering, the new Focal Clear headphones.
Focal Clear – “Discover the emotion of Music”
Focal Clear has been launched with the tagline “Discover the emotion of Music”; Focal treat the experience of headphone listening as a listening space unto itself, which results in various unique design aspects and approaches, especially with regards to the physical design of the headphones themselves.
At first glance, the Focal Clear is very much the brethren of the Focal Elear, externally the key distinction between the two being the Focal Clear’s bright and contemporary use of silvers and greys, against the Elear’s shades of black. A significant upgrade over the Focal Elear comes in the Clear’s heavily padded and perforated microfibre fabric ear cushions, redolent of the flagship Focal Utopia.
The upgrades permeate much more than merely aesthetic updates, however, as the Focal Elear utilises various advancements in driver construction, to elevate the performance of the Focal Clear to that of its similarly priced peer-group. These are very much a “hot-rodded” version of the Focal Elear, and it’s clear that Focal is aiming at the Sennheiser HD800s as its main competition.
Upgraded and Enhanced Driver technology
The Focal Clear utilises an enhanced version of the Focal Clear driver assembly, which in itself is no bad thing at all. Most moving-coil headphone assemblies utilise a very simple diaphragm assembly, which is essentially a dome with an edge bonded construction; good for economy – not so good in terms of harmonic distortion caused by driver breakup.
In contrast, the Focal Clear and Focal Elear utilise an ‘M Shape Dome” transducer, which has more in common with a conventional loud-speaker driver; hardly surprising given Focal’s pedigree in producing high-end loudspeaker technology. The advantage of this is massively reduced driver breakup, with a coincidental reduction in harmonic distortion.
The Focal Clear eschews the exceedingly costly beryllium driver technology of the Flagship Utopia headphones and retains the aluminium/magnesium alloy dome of the Focal Elear. It’s in the construction of the voice coil where the Focal Clear differs, however, using a higher performance pure copper, frameless voice coil. This also comes with a reduction in impedance, meaning the Focal Clear are the easiest to drive of Focal’s high-end, open-backed headphones; mobile listeners should rejoice accordingly!
Stay Tuned for a Review
Initial reports of these upgrades and changes have resulted in very favourable reviews of the Focal Clear. The big question has to be, “Can the Focal Clear finally represent a challenger to the Sennheiser HD800s?”; certainly, your author hopes to get his hands on a pair as soon as possible and report back forthwith!
For now, however, it’s clear that there’s a new challenger in the mid-tier of high-end audiophile headphones, one which is bound to be causing some concern to a number of headphone manufacturers. From the preliminary information alone, and based on Focal’s past form, the Focal Clear should be a winner in the marketplace.