The packing is... enormous. Infact it was so large I was unable to take a proper picture of it in my tiny little Photo Box. The grandeur that accompanies un-boxing the Elear is befitting of it's sound!
It sit's quite tall, and upon opening it has a fabric strap to keep the lid upright. The entire interior is padded in foam offering excellent protection during shipment and un-boxing. The strap ensures that you don't accidentally let the lid fall onto the headphones themselves. The Focal team clearly made every effort to protect the Elear during shipping. Striving to minimize any damage once the headphones have departed France to their new owners! The headphone itself while built ruggedly, is a bit creaky. The metal gimbals connect to the headband with what appears to be a plastic mechanism. Overall the whole design is very stiff, inflexible and a little noisy. I do, frankly, expect more from a headphone at this price point.
Unlike the headband assembly, the ear pads are soft and firm. They were very comfortable and I had no fatigue when wearing them for long periods of time. Each of the pads has precise even seams and no inconsistency with size.
While comfortable, the headband does feel a bit cheap. It is composed of plastic and covered in some sort of faux-leather like fabric. From a design standpoint, the headband is comfortable, evenly distributing the weight of the drivers. Though it feels very brittle in the hands.
Specs Frequency Response
- 40mm Transducer
- 15Hz-25kHz Frequency Response
- Sensitivity: 103dB @ 1KHz, 1mW
- 26 Ohm Impedance
- Rated Power Input: 30mW
- Maximum Power InputL 50mW
- Detacbale Kevlar OFC Cable
- Gold Plated 3.5mm jacks
- Weight: 260 Grams without Cable
The overall sound signature of the Focal Elear is both very neutral and laid back. An while it has excellent resolve with a smooth relaxed sound, it won't hide audible compression in low-res files. The Elear is an absolute joy to experience, it brings excellent dynamics and beautifully voiced transients to your music, it even introduced me to a few new details in my favorite songs.
Starting from the bottom, there is an audible mid bass hump present. While it compliments some genres, it takes away from others. When listening to classical music, the Elear would often present timpani drums with excessive boom. Such over emphasis in those large drums often made busier passages featuring them a bit crowded. The hump does add good heft and weight to percussion and acoustic instruments, and thankfully, the Elear is quick enough that its over emphasized bass does not bleed heavily into the mid range. I prefer a more linear response at this price point, but a touch of fun pairs nicely with the Elear's smooth resolve and low distortion.
The mid range is both smooth and very dynamic, with a wonderful timbre and a very relaxed sense of presence. Regardless of my source, I found myself drawn into the music. It's been said, "the soul of the music is found in the mids." While I personally prefer the drier more tactile sound of my Hifiman HE 4, I can't deny how comforting and relaxing it was to just listen to the Elear. Having a headphone with both a laid back and very well resolve mid range was a first for me. However, there was a noticeable lack of presence for many instruments. While I do prefer the mid range of the Elear over my HE 4 on almost every genre during my first few days, I found the Elear too laid back and weak sounding for metal and other high energy genres. An after living with the beautiful softer sound on the Elear for about a week, I started to miss some the excitement and tactility I get in the mid range of my HE 4.
High end extension was quite good, and the smooth beauty of the Elear continues upwards from the mid range. I found many of the metallic percussion instruments to have a refreshing sweetness to them, such as bells, chimes, tambourines and the like. Again though, that sweetness comes at the cost of aggression. High hats, tom-tom and snare drums lack a bit of edge and snappiness to them. The slower, more fleshed out mid range really detracts from percussion in high energy tracks. But for Jazz that touch of sweetness really pairs nicely with airy ethereal percussion tracks.
While it lacked air and depth compared to my HE 4, the Elear was phenomenally black. While the sound stage was more intimate and crowded than I like at times, it's super low distortion and overall black background allowed a lot of detail to shine through. A faster headphone isn't always better in every situation. On my system, the slower but blacker Elear introduced me to details on quite a few of my test tracks that I hadn't noticed before!
Overall, after a having it for little over a week, the Elear proves to be one of the most resolving relaxed sounding headphone I've had a chance to listen to! While it's not my personal preference, and I think there are better sounding options, what I do REALLY like about the Elear, is unlike the ZMF Atticus a similar sounding closed back or my HE 4 the polar opposite open back, the Elear sounds... quite similar out of both my NFb10ES2-> Project Ember, as it does straight out of my LG v20. Yes, there's better resolve and definition within the sound stage out of my home rig, but it was impressive right out of the phone as well.
I think for the people who just want a headphone, paired with a very basic dac/amp the Elear is appealing, it's a very solid entry point into Hi-Fi, especially if you don't want to have to work to build the "perfect" synergy. The Elear gives an engaging but well resolved sound that rewards upgrades, without punishing the owner for using entry level source or amplification.
I think for the people who just want a headphone, paired with a very basic dac/amp the Elear is appealing, it's a very solid entry point into Hi-Fi, especially if you don't want to have to work to build the "perfect" synergy. The Elear gives an engaging but well resolved sound that rewards upgrades, without punishing the owner for using entry level source or amplification.
