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New Focal Spirit Pros arrived friday and have about 20 hours on them and really love them. They are sealed, but the ear cups are small so they are on the ear for me. A little tight with the head band, but it will loosen up in a while. Well worth $350. From Sweetwater Sound. Ben Porter gave me great advice.
Jim Tavegia
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I am now at over the 40 hour mark and I can tell little difference in the presentation. I had started the hard task of comparing them to my AKG K701s and the AKG K271 mk2s and this is what I hear. Please keep in mind that I am 68 and I do have hearing loss over 6khz.
I am finding the Focal Pros much darker in presentation, but the bass and lower midrange is excellent, tight, and very full bodied. It is a nicely warm presentation. That is something I would not have expected with just a 40mm driver, but it is not hyped up like the Sony 7506s are. The low end is superb.
The difference to me is the upper mids and highs where the AKGs really fill my needs with a crisper presentation, in much the same way my Grado's do as well. All of this may solely have to do with my hearing loss as those with no hearing loss might find the Grado's or my AKG 701s and 271s too bright for them. I do not.
So, it appears that choosing cans has as much or more to do with each of our levels of hearing acumen and auditioning before we buy is a must I am afraid, as it certainly is for me.
Now that I am at the 40+ hour mark I don't expect much of a change in the Focal Spirit Pros, but for those of you with near perfect hearing these just might be the ticket you are looking for at $349 for the pair. They only come with a shorter coiled cord and a short, straight cord with mic button for use with a smart-phone, but I would not use it. I do wish they came with a 3 meter straight cord and have asked Focal if they have one available. I'll wait over the holiday to hear from them.
It did take about 50 hours for both of my AKGs to sound their best, but they were even more bright until they were broken in and then calmed down after. I don't think that is happening with the Focals.
Hope this helps those of you in the market.
Jim Tavegia
I have rearranged by headphone stations and have put the Focal Spirit Pros in my main listening room where I can give them a slight HF boost to accommodate my hearing loss and they sound so good. They are well worth the money. With cans we must all accomodate our hearing preferences and deficiencies. I will use them when doing most of my purchased music listening.
I moved my AKG K701 to my computer listening with my Steinberg UR-22 24/192 usb interface and they sound great there. I moved my Grados and will use them with portable listening devices,i.e Sony portable Discman players and my pair of Tascam DR-2ds when away.
I will keep my AKG K271 mk2 with my main recording rig and get another pair for my other Mackie set up.
There is a nice discussion on the www.innderfidelity.com page with Bob Katz about using EQ with headphone listening that I find intriguing. Now that I have really noticed my hearing issues some sort of high quality graphic EQ might be what I will need between my source and my cans.
Jim Tavegia
Hi, you probably know this, but if you could use EQ in the digital domain, it would sound better, from all I've heard and read. Also, with how revealing headphones are, any detriment to sound quality will show up, in a big way.
All depends on your setup, if there's a PC (or Mac) involved, that'd be the place to EQ. Lotsa guys and help on the Asylum PC Audio forum, Tony Lauck is very knowledgable.
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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