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RE: Focal Spirit Pros

Posted by jamestavegia@gmail.com (A) on September 12, 2015 at 09:35:30

In Reply to: RE: Focal Spirit Pros posted by jamestavegia@gmail.com on September 7, 2015 at 17:14:00:

So after a week of break-in with my Focal Spirit Pros I have spent some time really analyzing all of the cans I own from these new ones to my AKGs, the k701s ($229) and my newer K271mk2s ($199) , along with my old stand by Sony 7506s ($99) and through all of this I've learned quite a bit. It is going to help me make much better recordings in the future.

Because I sing solos at church and practice a lot (too much my wife says) what I have found is headphones that are more accurate will not work for singers who track (record) themselves while singing and try to maintain the proper balance between the music and vocal levels and still be able to hear enough of yourself singing to make vocal adjustments on the fly. There is some dissonance going on inside the head cavity when one is singing and listening that masks the voice that makes you think you are not loud enough when you really are. When using the Focals, and the AKGs while singing at the proper balance I can hardly hear my vocals in the mix. Yet when I am not singing and just listening to the playback, the vocals and music are in perfect balance.

This is where the Sony 7506's come into play as they have what must be a 3-6db boost in the vocal range that pushes the voice up over the music enough that you can hear yourself very well and make the vocal inflections of your voice you want to make in your performance. I will from now on only use the Sony 7506s for my vocal practice. I will then use the Focal Pros, and the AKG 701 and 271s for just mastering. When I am singing live at church I don't have to worry about the levels as that is now our house engineers problem of balancing vocalists and the music properly and he will adjust the floor monitors to where I can hear properly.

I would now rank the headphones that I own now in this way, keeping in mind that I now have about 50 hours on the Focal Pros and they need about 50 more I think. The Focals are beautiful, warm, good ambience retrieval and a great set of cans for $350. But with my reduced hearing the AKG K701 have the right mid and upper boost that I need to make up for my hearing loss over 6khz. The K271 are just ever so slightly boosted above the 701s, maybe 1 db, but that may be due to the difference in the open design of the K701s and the K271s being closed. What the AKGs give me is the vocalist pushed slightly more up front, center stage if you will that is just slightly more to my liking. It may be once the Focal Pros are fully broken in that the highs may improve, but I am not expecting that. Once broken in my AKGs just got smoother, but their response did not change that much. It did take 100 hours for the AKGs to sound their best.

I will also say that the sound of my old Grado SR-80s ($99) is closer to the AKG presentation, but with just a slightly nasal character, but only slightly so and only with a fast A/B comparison do you notice it. I have come to not enjoy my Koss Porta-Pros as their more nasal, closed in quality is too apparent to me now. But, for about $50 it is hard to complain about such a portable pair of cans. I like my Shure SE-215's IEM ($99) more now for most on the go listening.

For just listening to all my commercial recordings I do love the Focal Pros and in my main stereo systems where I can adjust the treble enough to add some sparkle to the presentation (as needed), as some recordings are bright anyway, they sound so good that I will be doing less speaker listening and not disturbing my family as much. I would say that if your hearing is excellent I would think that you would find the $350 Focal Spirit Pros to be a very nice addition to your stereo listening. I know that there are some great cans out there, but I have no interest in spending over $350 on headphones, but that is only my being terribly frugal, but when these Focals and my AKGs sound as good as they do, I would put the money in a better disc spinner, headphone amp, or DAC. The Focals are slightly tight on my head now when new, but that will lessen over time and make them more comfortable. The Focals also seal the outside noise better than either the AKG 271mk2s or the Sony 7506s, but those still do a good job of isolation, in their own right.

I hope this helps some of you looking at some new cans. I would sure recommend an audition of cans now more than I would have in the past as there are just too many personal variables that will matter greatly in your long-term enjoyment of what you buy. There is also some great info off the www.innerfidelity.com website with Bob Katz and others commenting on sonic variations of cans and amps that is a great read that I would highly recommend. I also love their model testing and how each relates to the new Harman headphone response curve that has gotten much attention lately.

Whatever you buy I hope you enjoy it as much as I am enjoying my new sets of headphones. It is a great time to be an audiophile as it is costing less and less to have great sound.
Jim Tavegia

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