Focal Elegia Circumaural Closed-Back High-Fidelity Audiophile Headphones Expired

+1 on ear ringing from these headphones, even when I was consciously listening at lower volumes to avoid the ringing. Never had that problem from my previous over-ear closed-back Sony MDR-V6, open back Grado SR60, Icemat Siberia, or a variety of IEMs. I think they form a strong seal against your ear and are capable of high pressure + displacement. I've seen similar reports from Audeze LCD-series headphones that also look like they can massively seal against your ear and have drivers that could move a good volume of air.

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.

Not sure who hurt you but you need to chill. I'm just trying to help people with my 5-6 years of audio research. Unfortunately it's not misinformation, it's simply how audio tech works. It would be similar to buying a 4k TV and then playing DVDs on it, realizing you need a 4k player and 4k discs to truly get the most out of the tv. If you just buy these headphones and plug them into your phone, you're likely missing out on the capabilities of the headphones. I wasn't calling out Spotify specifically but as an example of a popular streaming service that someone may subscribe to and unwittingly not be getting the highest quality music.

There's something about "HiFi" that always seems to inspire a healthy debate that somehow turns into bickering. Here's why I think that is: as crazy as it sounds, every opinion here is correct.

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.