That’s a nice treat

Good upgrade.

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Those are Crinacle Zero. They're about 30 bucks more expensive.

Bathys is physically smaller. Lighter (with more plastic in the build). Of course more portable.

Sound wise they’re similar, but I find Bathys does have a slight veil (which can be tweaked in EQ). Bass is more pronounced on Radiance. Mids are similar, but Bathys has a dip at 1k (which is also fixed in the EQ in the app). They’re both the Focal house sound.

Radiance has more stage and separation. Detail is similar.

I prefer the Radiance though at the house as the differences are enough for me to notice and enjoy. The Bathys are definitely my portable choice and as well are great. I just wish I had more adjustment options as I’m maxed out on the yokes.

I’m still learning to identify differences in timbre and separation and resolution. So I hope that helps.

I understand that u have to tune different drivers differently to match Ur target FR graph and my point still remains since nothing can stop truthear from adjusting shell and nozzles and crinacle to tune different drivers to his new target, my point about driver upgrade still remains since as I said Zero with different FR response is a side grade and only a driver upgrade with good tuning can make me want to buy project red.

What, are those not the chu?

Not necessarily really, if anything just using the Olina drivers will likely make them sound worse altogether since those drivers weren't designed to be used with the TE0 shell.

mum’s the word! We wouldn’t rat on a fellow brother.

$65 for DIY headband for Sundara from Aliexpress or $125 original via HiFiMan Store

I expect a better drivers, that's it. I understand that they will affect cost so I don't expect them to make a 50$ monarc mk 2 level of technical performance but Zeros DD's can definitely be replaced with better ones(like the ones which olina is using) and it will affect technical performance in a good way.

Yeah but what changes do you actually expect? Again what I meant is making changes so that it affects the frequency response, there isn't actually a magic button they can press that "improves technicalities" really.

Knowing audiophiles one way to do so would be to increase the price of the IEM.

>making changes to the drivers

Yes, this is exactly what I want

I think it's overall easier to make a more smooth v-shaped frequency response, but that cancels out a bit by sheer db you have to change which might cause distortion (never heard, never cared for it, would be cool to do a noise blind test sometime in the future). This hobby is so bs, you literally can't trust anything

There is no real way for acustic engineers to "improve technical performance" besides making changes to the drivers, the IEM shell itself or using different meshes and these will directly affect the FR too.

K612 Pro > K712 Pro

I live in France, have easy access to Focal headphones. But I would buy none of them. I took the time to listen to all of them, except the Elex, which may be the best suited one for me (because it is relatively cheap). As the Audeze headphones, I find them boring, way overpriced and pretentious. I find the build and comfort meh, feels fragile. Only the Celestee and Radiance look almost appealing to me. And regarding sound, none of them was brows raising. One exception : the (sick poo colored) Stellia, which sounded nice to me the first time, and meh the second time in comparison to other headphones at the shop.

Awesome, me too. Sorry if I sounded accusatory but reddit generally has a hard anti-religious tendency that I find unpleasant. Good on you mate.

They look like a telephone receiver.

They broke suddenly for no apparent reason when I was trying to wear them. Currently messaging all sellers on Aliexpress; Hifiman official store said they can't help me to get another headband and suggested consider another "higher end option".

Thinking about repairing those and selling for fraction of price and get something like Sennhs 560s or K712 Pro because those are just not reliable enough to use.

Meh, I thought about that but I am not about to recommend a Focal in a conversation about durability. Though for sound purposes I agree.

I have the 2020 Utopia as well, on Head-Fi Focal acknowledged but also said they had fixed the driver death issue with the Utopia by that point (I hope!)

Sad but true

Yeah, I own 7 Hifiman headphones. The only QC issue that I experienced was with a brand new HE-5XX. Its headband yolk holder already started to separate. I didn't want the HE-5XX anyways, so ended up returning the headphone (it didn't hold a candle to my HE-500).

HE-6 (4S and 6S), HE-500, HEKv1, HEXv2, Arya v2, HE-X4*

Next time try linking John Darko for more upvotes 😅