Nice review Z. I got these when they came out, and I am over the moon with them. Likes - Best sounding BT cans I have ever heard, very nice build quality, around 30 hours of battery life per charge. Dislikes - No audible battery level indicator upon switching them on (you have to open the damn app .. REALLY Focal? In 2023? .. ), no IP rating, meaning if its spitting rain then these have to be put away, and they kinda pricey. What can be problematic with a proper set of cans (think Focal Utopia / Stellia etc) is you need to have all your gear to run them if you feel like venturing outside the house, i.e. a stack. Its not impossible, but its a bit unnecessarily ball achey. Enter Bathys, and problem solved for great audio on the go. They are not Utopias, but they blow anything mainstream out of the water quite comfortably. For any folks here looking to pull the trigger, I would suggest go for it, even at the kinda pricey RRP.
have a source for that? There is very little info out there yet on what exactly Aptx lossless will require, only thing I could find was that it will require completely different tech in devices
Yup, I picked up an Open Box pair of Bathys for $550 and love them. You are correct. You have to beat the crap out of the for a good break-in. I can tell a big difference from when I first listen to the. I can barely turn them up past 65% volume.
Compared them to the PX8, Ananda, Celestee, Clear MG. The Clear MG were better but 2x more expensive. This is like a NC Bluetooth Celestee , sounded awesome. Went ahead and got them, I’m very happy indeed!
I owned these for a month and returned them. These have even more sibilance than the Celestee. They had a bit more bass which was nice for my tastes. Ultimately I returned these because you can't use them passively. Even when used with a wired connection, the device needs to have charge in order to use passively which defeats the purpose of using them wired when needed. Other Bluetooth wireless headphones like the Sony wh1000xm4 for example you could use passively if the battery dies.
@@GSP-76 I have a k5 pro, bought my clear mgs used I do believe they are considered better but audio is so subjective if you like them that’s all that matters
@@GSP-76 I tried the Celestee in store, they sounded similar to the Bathys. The Clear MG sounded better, but definitely not 2x better. The Celestee are a wonderful set of cans, you'll enjoy them!
Heyo Z, I have these too. DAC via USB-C does not charge the headphone. Quite like them but have some gripes. THE BAD: I don't think the microphone on these is good (infact it is awful), and I think the 'transparent' mode is absolutely dreadful. The transparent mode sounds like constant hissing, but isn't transparent enough to actually hear things over the sound of anything you are playing. You definitely cannot have an office conversation with it. But I do like both of the ANC options. I actually went back and forth with the Focal and Naim customer support thinking it was broken, before eventually going back to the shop and testing other units to see if my unit was broken out of the box or that is just how it sounds. It is just how it sounds. But the shop guy (not an employee of Focal and Naim) tried to claim I also needed to let the mic array burn in just like a speaker before it really works, and I had to hold back a powerful laugh. It has been a month, the transparent mode still sounds awful and I absolutely could not have a conversation with it or enjoy music with it, despite it being in the manual. It needs tuning, and rethinking. The mic is also bad for phonecalls, I will just use the phone mic, or if on a PC the mic I have on my PC. It sounds better. The mic is just rubbish and not worthy of being in an $800 piece. They could maybe even stand to lose some of the pricetag and weight of the unit by just not including a microphone in future updates to the model if they do that. It is just not worth using. I prefer turning off the light, because I don't like looking like a Christmas tree going on my weekly shop or commute however it has a tendency to just turn itself on when I turn the headphones on, and I find the app is unreliable for actually controlling things whenever you reconnect the headphones. If I'm wearing $800 headphones out and about, I absolutely do not want to be drawing attention to them being on my head and get them jacked. There needs to be a button, or possible interaction via the existing buttons, to just turn off the lights because if I am out and about, turn on the headphones and reconnect them via bluetooth then I absolutely do not want to be messing with their weird, unresponsive app. The jack input sound is just bad like you say. I am either running wireless (almost all the time), or USB-C. The 3.5mm is just not $800, and yes, the cable feels terrible and is just too small. For $800, I would expect them to be like... giving you more than 2 cables, and nicer ones. A cable you use with your phone on the go, and a cable you need when sitting at the PC have different design needs. One needs to be short and discrete, the other needs to be longer. I should not have to reorganise my PC layout to use your packed in cable for an expensive headphone. THE GOOD: They sound pretty damn good. You say this too, and I agree. I'm happy with the sound for a $800 pitch. USB DAC sounds great. Do NOT plug them into your own DAC imo, that does not sound great and infact sounds blown the fuck out and awful no matter what, especially via 3.5mm. The internal DAC is good though. The battery, like you mention, is insane. If you charge it for just 10m, it actually charges for hours worth of power which is good in a rush. Kinda nutty. I do find the battery level alert a bit disconcerting and wish it was possible to tune those via settings in the app somehow - let me tell it to only play them at self picked thresholds. The pre-programmed ones are not super useful, because if the battery like you say lasts over 24 hours of constant play (and it definitely does for me too these go days without charge on intermittent use), then getting an alert at like 10% when you still have like 3 hours of battery is not great. You will forget that. The ANC is great. I don't know much about your comparisons, but I find it is far more than enough to get me by. I will sometimes take it off on the train just to wow myself with how much noise is cancelled. The pressure you feel with ANC on is higher than most other ANCs I have used before and takes some getting used to though, but it sounds good and you will get used to it. I love the build quality. Not the visual design - that is Focal and is down to taste. On tastes though, I do like how this pair isn't nightmarishly ugly like some Focal colourways being just a silver and grey (the navy and bronze of the Celestees is a nightmare visually). But really, it's about how sturdy they feel. I do not look after these headphones. They feel strong enough and sturdy enough that I don't need to, I can just use them without worry of losing a ton of money. I buy expensive headphones on build first, sound later and these are definitely good in both departments but the build is just stellar. The pads are fantastic too, they are never uncomfortable even for someone like me with jug ears.
I have only one thing to add - female vocals sound not really good. Bass is nice, details are nice but if you are into some Lana del rey shit look elsewhere.
@@grubaskarpeta I listen to a lot of trance which heavily features female vocals and I find it is not an issue there, but it may be specific vocal styles which might present an issue?
One of the most engaging reviews I have ever watched and I love your passion and honesty and anoyance regarding what you don’t like. I have these headphones and I absolutely love them and at the moment for the bluetooth only element only which I believe is touching upon hi res audio to my ears. I have had high end DAPs previously from the Sony gold brick, Astell and Kern AK240 to Lotto Paw Gold used with $2000 iems eg from Peter at Double Helix Cables and others. So these daps and iems were from about 7 years ago but they still did not fulfill what I wanted and I think I just wanted to expect my music to sound better every time I used the headphones and devices because I had invested so much into them. It did not happen for me so I stopped listening until now. Anyway I got these Bathys and I played via bluetooth my downloaded from Qobuz the album of Neil Young’s Harvest from 7 years ago and it was beautiful to hear, it was much clearer and his voice was so Neil Young. I do really rate the Focal Bathys.
Focal uses primitive grunts to describe feature status, they should have used Z's voice instead. I would would love my headphones to yell at me like Zeos lol. Now that would be a selling point.
After owning mine for 2 weeks: Transparency mode is useless, you can't hold a conversation with someone while having audio playing on the headphones. (You can with APM, Sony XM4, XM5 and Sennheiser M4s) Build quality is shit for $800, my $180 Momentum 4s that I bought on closeout are built better than this. Only the yokes and pads are good on Bathys and the headband creates a pressurepoint. The app is useless even when you get it to run, it'll crash or not connect to the bathys 90% of the time. The light will turn on randomly even if it's turned off in the app and the equalizer can't do anything about the awful 8k on these so you have to use something like wavelet to control it. Cables are crap. That being said I love the sound of it. Focal have stated they can replace the batteries so atleast it won't be a future paperweight.
ZEOS THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!11 READ!! please stop saying apple is at the top of the NC game, for whatever reason the latest firmware for all their nc products have TERRIBLY nerfed the effect, it is now sony and bose at the top of this mountain again. you can read up on this just with a bit of googling or off some apple forums or reddit, no one knows why this is happening. i say this cus your voice is strong and an authority on this community and someone will readily take your word with no question, someone could go spend that 600 dollars and end up very sad. but i dont assume you still sit with the apple cans so you might not have realized this is going on. just a headsup.
Does LDAC support make my XM4 sounding good? HELL NO! Listen to lossless or high-bit rate files when possible but if it's impossible, it's okay, it won't transform my XM4 in to a Stellia
The XM5 just look so cheap and are upon examination very cheaply built . Sony abandoned the unrivaled fit of the XM3 XM4 Which is better than any headphones in my collection . I feel like a peasant wearing the XM5s And Sony Felt It A Good Thing To Up The Price By $50.00 . I Returned 2 Pairs Of XM5s Months Apart Trying To See The Value In Them And Other Than The ANC Their Is No Value I Could Find In The XM5s . My SoundCore Q35 & Q45 Have Better Sound Quality And Look Much Nicer Especially The Q45 .
Just bought the amiron wireless and Im yet not sure if I keep em. Detailing is good and they can be fun. The fit okay, by no means tight like dt1990 or 1770, but also not to loose. Also since my main Headphones when im using my PC are 1770's im missing the deep bass. Im listening to alot of techno so maybe I should look for something that comes closer to the 1770's bass.
to the subject of burn-in... buy two sets of cans and burn one in ... but not the other. then, have someone mix them up and you then get to say which is burned and which isn't - if you can tell the difference and you're right - burn-in is real... if you can't tell the difference or you're as wrong as often as you're right? burn-in is nonsense. that video will never be made by any youtube audiophile reviewer. because none of them like to admit their wrong. i propose the same thing whenever a reviewer says they can hear the vast and miraculous difference between SE and BAL, or with expensive cables. been asking for years, yet zero reviewers have done it...
Soundwise Only My Phillips Fidelio X2HR At $159.00 Oblitered My Bathys I Listened To Both The Exact Same Ways Anfd X2HR Made Me Not Even Want To Continue Listening To The Bathys .
I just picked a pair of Bathys in the UK for 600 (GBP). I also purchased an Audioquest Cinnamon usb-c to usb-c cable and in my opinion, the overall SQ was a elevated a fraction when using the usb cable through USB Audio Player Pro playing hires Qobuz; however, no real improvement with the stock usb cable (imo).
I heard these on a YT sound demo-I know, I KNOW-and the bass sounded muddy compares to Airpods Max. But other commenters were saying the Bathys sounded incredible. Do they just need burn in? Is it my wireless ANC headphones plus YT compression making the Bathys sound muddy?
it's nice, but what's up with Focal and cables, they just can't seem to get them right. For a premium product like this, they should be premium quality cable.s
Maybe I didn’t burn in long enough yet, but I found bass to be boosted and makes all songs sound the same down low. I fixed a little with the app eq lowering bass a few db, but I want them to fix with a dsp firmware update.
Not being able to run them w/o power using just the analog cable makes these not attractive to me. Wireless headphones eventually DIE. $800s is too much for me to commit to certain death.
oh... I use daily bose nc 700 almost 24/7 Fits good. nc35/45 may be a little bit better but black nc700 looks sexy for my. But! nc 700 so laggy. After one year of active wearing they start loose connection, mic. problems, cracking while trey cnnected. And lot of stuff in this way. I try sony/B&O/dali... for price till 400$ bose fits best. It's point for my. Now try to find Focal. Looks nice. Hope they will be fit close to bose headphones. Try to find them in my freezing Europe...
don't think there are many double-blind abx tests out there but there are moving parts which could, with use, change how the sound sounds on the other hand, even if you had 2 brand new ones and only burned one in, it would be complicated because maybe they were not exactly the same due to factory tolerances :D So, ideally, you'd have 10, perfectly match as many pairs before, try to pair match 2 pairs, then leave one of each without burn-in and then compare.
I've gotta give a warning to anyone looking to buy Focal because my Focal Elegia band snapped out of nowhere and it's not super widespread, but is a known issue. Customer support for Focal is also not great in the US to my knowledge. Look up the headband design, it's dreadful so I hope that they've changed it since.
Had these for 2 days - so I won’t comment on the sound quality but the features and build quality instead. The build quality is okay…it feels like a €300 headphones. There is plastic incorporated into the build which would be fine…but the headband features plastic fused with glue directly to the metal (to carry the wire from one earcup to the other) - within 1 day the plastic was starting to separate from the metal. There is just no excuse for this, hence I returned them. To me , the AirPods Max may be a better choice + some wired cans. If you want a Bluetooth headphone the AirPods tix most boxes (aside from the case and charging situation) + they bleed less noise and have proper features. I like the Bathys but they’re nothing special, I found that after 30mins my jaw hurt/ ears. Not the most comfortable headphones at all (for me)
I am returning these. These headphones distort above 70% volume. Sometimes about 60% of volume. Depending on what you're listening to. Don't believe me. Try to listen to some old school hip hop at 100% volume. Particularly when you try to adjust the EQ that's when it really happens. It doesn't happen much on r&b music as long as you keep the equalizer on normal but try to do anything else and it's going to distort. And it has been talked about on some forms about these headphones. But I've experienced it first hand. Very disappointing for a pair of $800 headphones. My Sennheiser doesn't do that. The Sony XM5 don't do that. And they are half the price of these headphones.
@@seklay Mark Levinson No. 5909, B&W PX8. And your phone most likely doesn't have removable battery, nor does your laptop. Designing a device with removable battery needs some compromises.
@@AliArghavan Designing a headphone with a removable cable is a compromise, like everything. Something being a compromise doesn't make it bad, it's a tradeoff. Phones and laptops aren't audio gear. A 10 year old flagship phone is easily outperformed by low-end devices now, meanwhile if you bought some top of the line audio gear 10 years ago, it's still very good. Slapping a shitty irreplaceable lipo inside an expensive headphone is planned obsolescence.
I see that IEF is your sponsor... what would it take for me to be the sponsor? LOL jk, I'm broke because I still have to buy all my own gear for review.
I love my Focal speakers and my Elex. Hated the Elegia and was afraid to try any higher price. The Bathys have 100% of the time ANC/DSP... lipstick on a pig. They even put out a video where the CEO says the engineers told him not to use their current design for wireless, and he proudly says he told them, make it work. Hence the full time ANC/DSP. Not worth more than $400. Looks like a kid's toy with blinking lights. Should have called it the Tonka. Velour lint magnet under the headband. No head detection when removed from head. The B&W Px8 is much better. I ended up with the Mark Levinson 5909. The 5909 is the real deal. All I wanted was the best ANC for travel the use my Gryphone for MQA at my hotel. But no. the Tonka full time ANC/DSP does not allow full provenance to pass through so CD quality only. POS! Love your videos! Hope to meet you and Can Jam NYC in Feb. I live in Jersey. Cheers!
This headphone is overrated, overhyped, and TBH the frequency response is unforgivable. I don't know why audiophiles don't seem to care about the horrendous dips in the FR and there are a lot of apologists of this clearly inferior measurable performance. And listening tests clearly show these dips, if one's REALLY listening and not hyping. Reputable speaker makers seems to release mediocre headphones... Focal and B&W, yes you. It would have been ok if you're not asking exorbitant prices for your underperforming "flagships".
Have them and they are amazing compared to most other BT headphones...which they should be regarded as. Sorry, but your"review" has too many "don´t knows" etc. If you are going to review a product, at least do your homework.
@@711jastinif you’re talking about price to performance than Audiophiles Headphones are not the range to be in 😂. Audiophiles will spend thousands to get get minor increments in sound quality. Once you listen to some good Cans, you’ll never be able to listen to the trash consumer market headphones 😂. Momentum 4’s are overrated asf IMO, they may be Sennheier but the tonal balance especially in the bass is unacceptable.
