I’ve come around. Growing up listening to music, my music in my room, mostly meant headphones due to my proximity to everyone else and the last thing my father wanted to hear at all hours was The Jimi Hendrix Experience for the millionth time.
The headphones were a pair of hand-me-down Koss HV/1A Stereophones paired with some long forgotten budget receiver and I spent many an hour, many a day, listening to Hendrix, Dylan, Neil Young, and more while staring up at a life-sized poster of Hendrix at Woodstock (I even owned a late ’60s white Strat).
I held out until 1986 to buy my first Sony Walkman, which accompanied me on a solo two month+ trip through Europe on a Eurail Pass where I explored art every day all day in places like London, Amsterdam, Venice, Rome, Florence, Nice, and Paris.
Once I’d settled into my own place in NYC post-college, it became hifi all-the-time through a rotating cast of stereos with speakers as my main source of sound. Thiel CS1.5, Von Schweikert VR3, Odeon Double Six, DeVore Super 8s, Auditorium 23 SoloVox, Altec Valencias, and my current main squeeze the DeVore O/96 (review) to name but a few. Headphone listening took a back seat, way back, but I’ve been using and enjoying a pair of AudioQuest NightOwls going on 5+ years. That’s nearly forever in HiFi gear years.
Lately, I’ve been lured back into an interest in spending more with the headphone out of review gear like the lovely Enleum AMP-23R (review), the stunning Octave V 16 (review), and the mightily sweet Aurorasound HFSA-01 (review) so I thought it time for some new ‘phones, the NightOwl being long discontinued.
Since I’ve been out of the head-fi space for some time, I reached out to my pal Darko for some suggestions. A pair of Focal were on his short list and it just so happened I had just listened through a pair of Focal Stellia and was mightily impressed. I also love me some HiFi history and Focal has gobs of it, founded in Saint-Étienne, France in 1979 (the year I graduated high school). And here we are.
The Focal Clear Mg are, as you can see, and open-back design which suits me and Barn’s quiet perfectly. The leather and perforated microfibre bits that touch my head are supremely comfortable and I find the look, fit, and Chestnut and Mixed-Metals finish elegant. Yes, elegant.
While it’s very early on in our long term loan relationship, I can tell you that the Clear Mg’s open-back design appeals to my seemingly increasing desire to hear what’s going on around me, maybe it’s the bear! [footnote 1], and they sound lovely, open, and beautifully resolving. Like music kissing my brain.
You’ll be reading more about the Focals in upcoming reviews of all things with headphone amps.
Company Website: Focal
Specifications
Type: Circum-aural open-back headphones
Impedance: 55 Ohms
Sensitivity: 104dB SPL / 1 mW @ 1kHz
THD: 0.25% @ 1kHz / 100dB SPL
Frequency Response: 5Hz – 28kHz
Speaker Driver: 15/8″ (40mm) ‘M’-shaped magnesium dome
Weight: 0.99lbs (450g)
1.
