Sonarworks measures Elear and Utopia

Discussion in 'Audio Science' started by Hrodulf, Mar 31, 2017.

  1. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    FOCAL Elear:

    Focal_Elear.png

    FOCAL Utopia:

    Focal_Utopia.png

    Overall I'm impressed by Focal newest offerings. I love to see a company making an effort to drive forward the driver tech. And don't end up releasing a friggin face tweeter.

    As you can see the Utopia is more top heavy with bottom roll-off starting subtly earlier. Elear has a nasty 6k spike, which is pretty narrow, so it'll bother you only if the right notes are being hit. Overall uncalibrated I prefer Elear, but Utopia is quite the experience once you do some ironing.

    The upper mid suckout combined with a treble peak is Focal house sound. It's not offensive like Beyer and AKG cook their phones, but I always prefer filling the suckout. Also Utopia imho has a tad too scrawny bootay. Elear has bass extension on par with orthodynamics. Both phones have hard-to-measure THD, which hardly peaks above 1% around sub-bass.

    Technicalities wise both phones trump the HD6XX series. Price performance wise Elear is the sweet spot, but I'd rather spend 700 on a used HD800 and iron that out with DSP/mods/both. Comfort is pretty okay, slightly below HD800. Cables are way too thiccccc. Build quality is superb which is nice because Focal Spirit Pro was super cracky.

    I like where Focal are going with this.

    P.S. Don't compare these measurements to anything but to each other and other SW curves. We use varying amounts of smoothing depending on frequency range. Deviation is relative to our compensation curve which is similar to Olive-Welti. All curves are checked by ear for measurement artefacts, mostly above 10KHz, which is tricky to measure. RAW measurements compiled from multiples with varying positioning.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2017
  2. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    I'm surprised to see so much bass rolloff on your rig. I definitely didn't get anywhere near as much rolloff. That is the compensation curve, right? Otherwise the measurements look interesting, but tbh I can't say I find these more accurate than the other curves I've seen, all of which looked very different.
     
  3. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Our compensation curve is usually more bass heavy than others I've seen. Here's an LCD-2.2, HD800, HD650 for comparison.

    We devised our compensation by comparing the tonal response to a calibrated full range speaker system. The crucial test is recording engineers - if they rely on our curve and end up mixing good bass, then the curve is on-point.
     
  4. Pervy Sage

    Pervy Sage New

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    Does this mean that the Utopia & Elear will be supported in the Sonarworks Headphone plugin soon?
     
  5. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    As soon as we get some more in. So far only one of each has been measured.
     
  6. Gatucho

    Gatucho New

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    To be honest I believe that these measurements are more in line with what I have heard and measured myself. At least for the Elears which are the ones I have. Particularly the dip in the mids didn't seem as pronounced to me as it has been represented in the past. In addition, the sub bass extension being almost DC didn't seem right to me neither. Nice post
     
  7. TMRaven

    TMRaven Friend

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    I prefer the bass measurements from sonarworks more than others'. A lot of measurements make headphones like the LCD2 seem bottomless, which in reality it isn't unless you have a perfect seal. Other measurements make it seem like the HD650 extends down to 30-40hz with ease-- that headphone becomes flacid under 60-70hz.
     
  8. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    Elear and Sonarworks EQ is super tempting, Elear's low distortion and technicalities seems to make it ideal for digital EQ.
    I would like to read other opinions about Sonarworks' Elears before buying btw, but looks like it could be golden.
     
  9. ipm

    ipm Acquaintance

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    The bass-detail retrieval below this point is also not great in some cases depending on what you may be listening to. The overall balance in the headphone is excellent though.
     
  10. FallingObjects

    FallingObjects Pay It Forward

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    Just saw this post now. I had upgrade-itis for a while. Sonarwork's True-fi profiles for the Elear have put that into remission (for now). B profile is hilarious for tricking your mind into 'feeling' sub-bass in your chest.
     

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