expirediconian | Staff posted Nov 29, 2021 06:19 PM
Item 1 of 5
Item 1 of 5
expirediconian | Staff posted Nov 29, 2021 06:19 PM
Focal Elegia Circumaural Closed-Back High-Fidelity Audiophile Headphones
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I have to guess IEMs don't do it since they can't move the same quantity of air. But this is all guessing since this isn't a very common problem.
I'm not an audiophile, and will never pretend to be (don't know the science or care for it), but I grew up around someone who is a pretty serious nutcase of an Audiophile (my Dad). Here's what he has owned in some shape or fashion over the years (Bowers Wilkins 802 Diamond "R2D2", Thiel CS 3.6, Wilson Audio Watt Puppy, Wilson Audio Alexia, Wilson Audio Alexandria, and Avante Garde Trio). You can Google the specs and the prices yourselves. Some of these are six figure speakers. My point is I grew up listening to these speakers not in a showroom, not for an hour, but I guess I'm intimately familiar with them. I know what a DCS Debussy $10K DAC sounds like, etc.
If you keep the signal chain consistent, I might be able to discern which was which, maybe. If you change something, anything in the chain, all bets are off. Being 100% honest here.
I say all that only to make a point: Audio is extremely subjective. What sounds good to one person is not the same to the other, and price has very little meaning when sound is in the erm... "Ear of the Be-hearer".
The user who said that you didn't need a DAC/Amp to drive low impedance headphones is correct. But the guy/gal who said a DAC and Amp makes them sound better, is also correct. So is the person who said they can tell the difference between 320 encoded versus FLAC and the person who can't. It all depends on what you are looking for in your music, what you want to hear (a jazz singer's voice which is in the midrange is gonna be very different from dance music which will be bass heavy).
It sounds trite, but if you're just starting out in this hobby, the classic advice "go into the store and listen", is the honest truth. The owner of one of the higest end audio stores in Chicago once showed me a big room of what he called "OPM: Other People's Mistakes". That's because someone bought something because they "read somewhere" it sounded good, or a friend told them, or an Audio Forum, etc and had to sell it or return it.
Listen with your ears instead.
I'm not a crazy nut like my Dad, but I own some nice sounding gear, like a Thiel CS 3.6 and a Bryston 4B. The very best sounding set up that I personally love and use everyday is a pair of Grado SR-325s and a Little Dot 1+ with upgraded Tubes. But that's MY preference. I like things to sound like live music. And I am a music lover, not an audiophile. But I want things to sound good to my ears.
Back to the topic at hand: I demoed the Elegias a while back. They do sound a lot like the Clear, BUT there's something very significant that was missing I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't like them as much as the Clears. But I still prefer my Grados.
It's all about personal preferences, you see.
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I'm not an audiophile, and will never pretend to be (don't know the science or care for it), but I grew up around someone who is a pretty serious nutcase of an Audiophile (my Dad). Here's what he has owned in some shape or fashion over the years (Bowers Wilkins 802 Diamond "R2D2", Thiel CS 3.6, Wilson Audio Watt Puppy, Wilson Audio Alexia, Wilson Audio Alexandria, and Avante Garde Trio). You can Google the specs and the prices yourselves. Some of these are six figure speakers. My point is I grew up listening to these speakers not in a showroom, not for an hour, but I guess I'm intimately familiar with them. I know what a DCS Debussy $10K DAC sounds like, etc.
If you keep the signal chain consistent, I might be able to discern which was which, maybe. If you change something, anything in the chain, all bets are off. Being 100% honest here.
I say all that only to make a point: Audio is extremely subjective. What sounds good to one person is not the same to the other, and price has very little meaning when sound is in the erm... "Ear of the Be-hearer".
The user who said that you didn't need a DAC/Amp to drive low impedance headphones is correct. But the guy/gal who said a DAC and Amp makes them sound better, is also correct. So is the person who said they can tell the difference between 320 encoded versus FLAC and the person who can't. It all depends on what you are looking for in your music, what you want to hear (a jazz singer's voice which is in the midrange is gonna be very different from dance music which will be bass heavy).
It sounds trite, but if you're just starting out in this hobby, the classic advice "go into the store and listen", is the honest truth. The owner of one of the higest end audio stores in Chicago once showed me a big room of what he called "OPM: Other People's Mistakes". That's because someone bought something because they "read somewhere" it sounded good, or a friend told them, or an Audio Forum, etc and had to sell it or return it.
Listen with your ears instead.
I'm not a crazy nut like my Dad, but I own some nice sounding gear, like a Thiel CS 3.6 and a Bryston 4B. The very best sounding set up that I personally love and use everyday is a pair of Grado SR-325s and a Little Dot 1+ with upgraded Tubes. But that's MY preference. I like things to sound like live music. And I am a music lover, not an audiophile. But I want things to sound good to my ears.
Back to the topic at hand: I demoed the Elegias a while back. They do sound a lot like the Clear, BUT there's something very significant that was missing I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't like them as much as the Clears. But I still prefer my Grados.
It's all about personal preferences, you see.
I'm not an audiophile, and will never pretend to be (don't know the science or care for it), but I grew up around someone who is a pretty serious nutcase of an Audiophile (my Dad). Here's what he has owned in some shape or fashion over the years (Bowers Wilkins 802 Diamond "R2D2", Thiel CS 3.6, Wilson Audio Watt Puppy, Wilson Audio Alexia, Wilson Audio Alexandria, and Avante Garde Trio). You can Google the specs and the prices yourselves. Some of these are six figure speakers. My point is I grew up listening to these speakers not in a showroom, not for an hour, but I guess I'm intimately familiar with them. I know what a DCS Debussy $10K DAC sounds like, etc.
If you keep the signal chain consistent, I might be able to discern which was which, maybe. If you change something, anything in the chain, all bets are off. Being 100% honest here.
I say all that only to make a point: Audio is extremely subjective. What sounds good to one person is not the same to the other, and price has very little meaning when sound is in the erm... "Ear of the Be-hearer".
The user who said that you didn't need a DAC/Amp to drive low impedance headphones is correct. But the guy/gal who said a DAC and Amp makes them sound better, is also correct. So is the person who said they can tell the difference between 320 encoded versus FLAC and the person who can't. It all depends on what you are looking for in your music, what you want to hear (a jazz singer's voice which is in the midrange is gonna be very different from dance music which will be bass heavy).
It sounds trite, but if you're just starting out in this hobby, the classic advice "go into the store and listen", is the honest truth. The owner of one of the higest end audio stores in Chicago once showed me a big room of what he called "OPM: Other People's Mistakes". That's because someone bought something because they "read somewhere" it sounded good, or a friend told them, or an Audio Forum, etc and had to sell it or return it.
Listen with your ears instead.
I'm not a crazy nut like my Dad, but I own some nice sounding gear, like a Thiel CS 3.6 and a Bryston 4B. The very best sounding set up that I personally love and use everyday is a pair of Grado SR-325s and a Little Dot 1+ with upgraded Tubes. But that's MY preference. I like things to sound like live music. And I am a music lover, not an audiophile. But I want things to sound good to my ears.
Back to the topic at hand: I demoed the Elegias a while back. They do sound a lot like the Clear, BUT there's something very significant that was missing I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't like them as much as the Clears. But I still prefer my Grados.
It's all about personal preferences, you see.
I'm not an audiophile, and will never pretend to be (don't know the science or care for it), but I grew up around someone who is a pretty serious nutcase of an Audiophile (my Dad). Here's what he has owned in some shape or fashion over the years (Bowers Wilkins 802 Diamond "R2D2", Thiel CS 3.6, Wilson Audio Watt Puppy, Wilson Audio Alexia, Wilson Audio Alexandria, and Avante Garde Trio). You can Google the specs and the prices yourselves. Some of these are six figure speakers. My point is I grew up listening to these speakers not in a showroom, not for an hour, but I guess I'm intimately familiar with them. I know what a DCS Debussy $10K DAC sounds like, etc.
If you keep the signal chain consistent, I might be able to discern which was which, maybe. If you change something, anything in the chain, all bets are off. Being 100% honest here.
I say all that only to make a point: Audio is extremely subjective. What sounds good to one person is not the same to the other, and price has very little meaning when sound is in the erm... "Ear of the Be-hearer".
The user who said that you didn't need a DAC/Amp to drive low impedance headphones is correct. But the guy/gal who said a DAC and Amp makes them sound better, is also correct. So is the person who said they can tell the difference between 320 encoded versus FLAC and the person who can't. It all depends on what you are looking for in your music, what you want to hear (a jazz singer's voice which is in the midrange is gonna be very different from dance music which will be bass heavy).
It sounds trite, but if you're just starting out in this hobby, the classic advice "go into the store and listen", is the honest truth. The owner of one of the higest end audio stores in Chicago once showed me a big room of what he called "OPM: Other People's Mistakes". That's because someone bought something because they "read somewhere" it sounded good, or a friend told them, or an Audio Forum, etc and had to sell it or return it.
Listen with your ears instead.
I'm not a crazy nut like my Dad, but I own some nice sounding gear, like a Thiel CS 3.6 and a Bryston 4B. The very best sounding set up that I personally love and use everyday is a pair of Grado SR-325s and a Little Dot 1+ with upgraded Tubes. But that's MY preference. I like things to sound like live music. And I am a music lover, not an audiophile. But I want things to sound good to my ears.
Back to the topic at hand: I demoed the Elegias a while back. They do sound a lot like the Clear, BUT there's something very significant that was missing I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't like them as much as the Clears. But I still prefer my Grados.
It's all about personal preferences, you see.
Cannot agree with you more.
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And these $300+ cans will display a 128mp3 to your ears better than the $200+ Sennheiser/DROP collabs that get posted; With the same lowly Spotify content.
I mean you can drive a Corvette or a Corolla with the same fuel, but which one is gonna be more fun doing so?
And these $300+ cans will display a 128mp3 to your ears better than the $200+ Sennheiser/DROP collabs that get posted; With the same lowly Spotify content.
I mean you can drive a Corvette or a Corolla with the same fuel, but which one is gonna be more fun doing so?
That being said, lets be real - even if the balancing of the acoustics don't match electronic music the best they are still damn good at reproducing sound and are seriously fun to use. The fact they are easier to drive than many sets puts them in a highly recommended category from me for travel, movies and gaming.
Appreciate advice!
Appreciate advice!
Done.
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Appreciate advice!
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