Pad-rolling is how you turn the Elegia from mediocre to amazing.
Get some Dekoni sheepskin pads and with some EQ you’ll get a wonderful sounding closed-back for relatively cheap.
The Dekoni Stellia pads also work but I only found it to move the treble spike, not get rid of it. Still easier to EQ than with stock pads.
You can also get yourself some Celestee pads, and then you will literally have a Celestee sound-wise. The driver unit and cup inner design is identical between both. They’re twice the price as Dekoni’s options, but you won’t really have to worry about replacing them unlike the Clear ones. And it’s still cheaper than buying a Celestee, you’d only be sacrificing build quality compared to it.
You can also get the official Radiance and Stellia pads, however they won’t turn your Elegia into either of them. The Radiance uses the same driver unit but a different bass port design, while the Stellia uses the same bass port design but a different driver made of Beryllium. Both of them are also better built than even the Celestee. I’d still say it’s an improvement compared to the stock one, by far.
There’s also the ZMF pads but I’ve never tried them myself and haven’t heard much either, so can’t really say anything about those.
Known issue with the Elegia is the breaking headband. There’s 2 options in that case, either swapping it to another compatible headband (easy swap) or replacing the broken parts with stronger, 3D printed ones (quite harder but you’ll keep the stock design).
I still have mt Focal Elegia and love them, but only listen to them using the Dekoni Custom Pads, they were originally called the Dekoni Stellia pads. The pads really changes the sound in a positive way. They do a great job a giving you a nice bump on the low end, and removing the edge on the high end. If Focal would ship them with these pads, it would make them a must buy for a lot of people.
Elegias are trash with stock tuning. EQ helps for sure though.
To the Elegia owners out there who still have and enjoy theirs; I’m very jealous.
They have awesome low end, amazing detail across the board, pleasant mids, superb build and feel, but that weird, tinny, treble spike just ruined them for me.
Was it an issue of being priced too cheap to uphold Focal standards, an honest swing and a miss, or are my ears being overly critical?
I still have mt Focal Elegia and love them, but only listen to them using the Dekoni Custom Pads, they were originally called the Dekoni Stellia pads. The pads really changes the sound in a positive way. They do a great job a giving you a nice bump on the low end, and removing the edge on the high end. If Focal would ship them with these pads, it would make them a must buy for a lot of people, with no EQ needed.
These were the WORST sounding headphones I’ve owned outside of the Sony XM line. No matter the EQ they sound like a veiled, muffled mess. Both they and the XM5 has a similar issue where they sound like a paper towel is put over the ear cups and I personally can’t stand it. Returned the and paid the restocking fee. Lol.
In my opinion, it’s got a lot going against it, so it isn’t too surprising.
- Stock pad tuning has a really wonky sound, which can be remedied with pad swaps and/or EQ.
- Some expect a similar “Focal house sound” coming from the Elear/Elex/Clear, except in closed back form, and found it to deviate too far from that standard for comfort.
- Even if you happened to like the stock tuning, Focal doesn’t sell replacement pads, so inevitably you would have to succumb to the pad rolling game at some point in the future anyway.
- The Elegia was also notorious for snapping headbands as well, more so than another other model.
Honestly, at the tail end of 2023, if you have to have an affordable closed back set, my vote would go to the (currently) $149 Hifiman Sundara closed back. Again, the same caveat applies to the Sundara CB - if you’re expecting the exact same sound as the Sundara open back, it’s not going to match up to that standard - but it’s also nowhere near as bad as the Internet makes them out to sound.
I have been deeeply tempted by the Sundara CBs but haven’t pulled trigger because of the hella polarised opinions I have heard.
Any suggestions on how to make them sound their best? I’ve heard mixed reports on EQing and nothing on pad swaps.
Yeah, I suspect that those opinions are the reason why there has not been any major traction with the Sundara CB’s, so you’ll likely not see much with community created EQ’s and pad rolling experiences until more people get their hands on them. Hopefully, with the sale price that’s going on now, that should become more realistic.
For me, they sound good without any tweaks, which is always a welcome experience. It’s got what I would consider a more “average consumer friendly” sound to them, so I’m surprised there is as much negative impressions as there are - but how many people have actually listened to them, is the main question. Not sure if there may have been a silent revision or not, but I don’t find them to sound as bad as the measurements suggest.
If you can try them out and just listen to them as-is, that would be the way to go, especially if you can buy from Amazon and have the return window available until the end of January. I generally don’t go into any headphone purchase with the mindset that I have to have some kind of modding ready at the helm, but again, that’s just me.
Reasonable! Thanks for the response, it’s super helpful. I’m still trying to figure out which of the various holiday deals I want to jump on but this was definitely one I was eyeing.
Now I just need to sort out my own priorities and choose between a sweet deal on a fun closed back, or taking a little leap up to the Edition XS since that seems like a lot of headphone and detail for the money.
No worries.
Not sure if this may be your first time looking/trying any planars (and particularly Hifiman headphones), but if you’re open to the idea, I would suggest to go with the cheapest possible entry first before going higher into the lineup. From my experiences, the $109 HE400se is a great entry point to give you a taste of the “Hifiman house sound”, before sinking more money, which again you can leverage Amazon’s return period window to your advantage for evaluating. While there are appreciable differences the higher up you go, the more you listen to their headphones, the more you tend to find a lot of tuning similarities across their product line.
Just my $.02. :) Good luck with the hunt!
I just recently bought these 2 months ago and listening to them out of the box was not bad but not great… I played pink noise through them for 24 hours at 85% volume and it actually made a pretty huge difference to my pair and they sound fantastic, No EQ change as I found it changed them too much and made them a little muddy… just a 2.5mm balanced cable and a BTR5 and to me they are worth every penny $329 Australian dollars… wouldn’t pay $1400 AUD though lol…
Burn in isn’t real, that’s just placebo