Yes, that is a Focal Clear OG, but in an Elex body. Picked it up off someone in r/AVexchange for like $550, which is insane value.

 

I use the Cavalli Tube Hybrid primarily for the Focal Clears, as when I tried them out with this combo I’ve never wanted to unplug them. It adds so much musicality and IMO it’s hard to listen to this phone without this amp. I’ve compared them to better amps at sound stores and I prefer this hybrid tube amp over many of the nicer solid state amps that I demoed.

 

The Focal Clears are such a nice compliment to the LCD-2 Classics. I am a bit treble sensitive, so the Focal Clears are nice when I want to hear a bit of detail, but I find myself reaching for the LCDs more often than not. With that being said, the Focals (with the tube amp) handle everything I’ve thrown at them perfectly. It has nice punchy bass, very comfortable mids and bright treble. They also have very good imagining and detail retrieval that is sometimes missed on the 2Cs. I use them primarily for lighter sounding R&B (think Sade, Snoh Aalegra, and 70s soul), but I also use them for hip hop, rock, and sometimes metal.

 

The LCD-2 Classics aren’t technically the best headphone I’ve ever heard but for my preferences (a dark, bassy sound), they are my favorite, especially when paired with the Zen DAC v2. The bass boost adds a nice punch to what I find to be a very enjoyable sound signature. I purchased them for about $500 open box and when reading reviews while waiting for it to arrive, I was worried I would hate the stock tuning, but I actually enjoy it a lot, the only adjustment I left is the TrueBass button (which is on almost constantly). It is nice though that if I want to take the “muffled” sound off, all I need to do is hit a bit of EQ in the 4k region, which I do sometimes.

 

The 2Cs with no bass boost are a bit boring to me. They’re dark with not much to redeem them. However, with the bass boost, it gives exactly what I want for my preferred genres (Drum and Bass, Hip-Hop, R&B, Rock,and tons of lofi, and tons of Thundercat). The bass is nice and punchy, the vocals are buttery smooth, and the upper mids and treble is muted just enough to be soothing rather than bright (like the Focal Clear OG can sometimes be). The 2Cs are what I find myself reaching for the most often. When I first got my Focal Clears I thought they were too bright, but after listening for a couple weeks I’ve learned to appreciate them as separate entities.

 

I did get the chance to demo a few other headphones that I’ll briefly summarize.

 

LCD-X: Very good, enjoyed my time with them. I kind of prefer the tonality of the 2Cs. It’s much more detailed but, again I have the Focal Clears for when I want to listen to detail. If I didn’t already own the 2Cs I’d be looking for these, but I like the dark/bright combo I have a lot. I also greatly preferred the way the 2Cs sounded with much of the lofi music I listened to.

 

LCD-5: Honestly didn’t like these that much. Well, that’s not entirely true. I liked them, but thought they were a more technical LCD-X for roughly 9x the price I paid for my 2Cs. Given that I liked the 2Cs over the Xs because they were less technical, I only wanted to listen to a handful of songs on these before I put them down and wanted to try something else. Very impressive headphones though.

 

Hifiman He-1000: These sounded so fucking good. If I were to be lying when I said that my above combo was endgame, these would be the cans I broke them for. I asked the employee to recommend me his favorite phones and some of his favorite music and he played Dreams by Fleetwood Mac and Black Cow by Steely Dan. It was also my first time hearing these songs. They sounded incredible on the He-1000s and it felt so detailed that I felt like I could have been there.

 

All in all, I don’t think these two are the best headphones I’ve listened to and truth be told I figured I was going to want to sell the 2Cs and pick up the LCD-Xs after demoing them. However, I don’t think they are the best fit for me, for both my taste in music and the tonality I prefer. This will probably be my setup for some time.

 

Thanks for reading.

My EQ settings for when I do want to open them up a little are as follows:

 

Preamp: -3 dB

Filter 5: ON LS Fc 100 Hz Gain 3 dB

Filter 8: ON PK Fc 4000 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 2

Filter 10: ON PK Fc 8000 Hz Gain 6 dB Q 2