You know what, I’m going to entirely reset my view on focal to the current wave of feedback and say they’re like early days hifiman only double the price but break just as easy. My early days elears and utopia’s have had no issues but clearly that’s not a standard they aspire to anymore

wouldn’t have guessed that. makes the focals look very dogshit finish wise then, for sure.

always get the FLAC so you can transcode down to 128vbr.

So its been like 4 years that i’ve been using a custom cable and never looked back since

oh i thought you meant the actual connectors snapped, not the cable. they should do better yes and i’m guilty of just accepting that cables that are supplied by certain manufacturers are just shit cos they know the buyer will just use their own cable.

But wouldnt it be wise to first give them like a primer layer and then like 2 finished layers?

i hope someone else can chime in here as i think this might be wrong, but i think the thicker the layer of paint, the more likely you are to get cracking and then chips forming?

ideally focal should have made their own plastic cup in the colour they wanted instead of just painting the existing parts. so that’s a compromise i’d hope to not see on a premium product.

I have 20year old HD 600s

which are solid plastic, not painted, correct?

the headband and the earcups creak alot

most do on all headphones to varying degrees depending on what you’re doing to them. once its sat on your actual head are they doing it cos neither my focal elears or utopias do it on my head. the last lot of hd600’s i had creaked if you twisted them enough.

hd600 creak site:www.reddit.com

gives 715 threads.

Or am I just delusional?

yes and no, imo. you’re 4.5 years in so yes. i would not expect anything painted onto another non porous surface that is subject to manual handling to be issue free after 4.5 years. if this happened within a few weeks or months, then absolutely not ok.

As I said previously both the XLR and 3.5mm cables broke within a month

out of interest, how did they? what action caused the snap cos that would certainly piss me off.

camera isn’t really picking up the minor scratches and scuffs. but these headphones literally go on my head for 6hrs, then are placed down much as they are in the pictures until they’re next used. they’re not painted so they’re nothing to chip.

https://imgur.com/a/ZwgKr3M

It’s a painted finish. The areas that are peeling are exactly where you go to grab it if you pick it up. Look at the finish on anything subject to wear and tear and see if it is without blemish after 4.5yeard handling . Give me like an hour to get to the office and I’ll post a picture of a pair of focal elears that has had about 6hrs seated desk use, every day, since they were bought for daily use in 2016/17.

Tldr - wear and tear is individual use case. Op has had snaps, chips etc but given zero context of use, so this witch-hunt circle jerk you’re all jumping on is pretty naive.

4.5 years later they will tell him its reasonable wear and tear.

like why is this even a thread.