Verdict
Focal ’s first wireless ANC headphones are a mellow quality luxury pair , with first-class sound , unique aesthetics , long assault and battery life and top - grade call quality . The stochasticity - cancellation could be best , but work well enough for the spot this headphone is probable to be used for . The Focal Bathys are the substantially - sounding wireless earphone among their illustrious peers .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Gallic audio recording brand Focal has a all-inclusive range of headphones but up until a few years ago , all its models were wired . The Focal Bathys is its first wireless ANC phone .
WhileBluetooth headphoneshave become hugely popular , audio purists will rely that wired headphones still offer the best public presentation . Bluetooth offers public lavatory as well as limitations , while the add-on of interference - cancellation can affect how headphones sound .
If you ’re familiar with Focal , you ’ll know it ’s not concerned in compromise on their charge of bringing out every nuance in medicine with “ preciseness and pellucidity ” , which leave me eager to learn how well the Bathys menu .
Design
Available in black / silver or a dune goal ( no relation to the book / film series ) , the Focal Bathys present a neat , refined look with its silver accents .
concenter on the center of the earcup and you ’ll descry the brand ’s ‘ flame ’ logo , behind which is a backlight that glows whenever the headphones are power on . you’re able to keep the backlight on in the app and adjust the light for the great unwashed to gawk as you walk past .
The Bathys ca n’t be collapsed and close down , but they can dwell flat in the companion material covered gruelling case . Inside is aUSB - Cand 3.5 mm cable for wired listening , the former substantiate resolutions up to 24 - bit/192kHz .
From a ease perspective , the Focal Bathys embrace the promontory and some may feel the pressure around the ears is an infliction . I find the ( sizable ) capitulum - cushioning comfortable enough , and though the earpiece are on the heavy side ( 350 g ) the clamp force is slender enough for enough comfort level . Inside the earcup is plenty of space so my ears never felt strangle . That ’s a boon yield these phone are ‘ travel - friendly ’ , and moreover the earpads can be supercede if they get damaged .
The duo ( the plug in constituent between headband and earcups ) are made from magnesium , the frame uses atomic number 13 , and the headband incorporates real leather , which may put some off . But the building and esthetic is up to a high gauge .
Most of the physical buttons are settle on the right earcup , cross playback and mass , power / USB DAC mode and a consecrate voice assistant button ; on the left is the dissonance - cancel button . The buttons do feel a short rudimentary , and there have been times when the swordplay / pause button has n’t respond . It ’s the only issue I ’ve had using these headphones .
Features
Bathys is a point of reference to a Bathyscaphe , a free - diving event , self - propelled bomber from the 1940s . The logical thinking behind the name is the idea of ‘ calm , depth and sheer quiet ’ , which is a peachy segue into the Bathy ’s noise - cancelling public presentation .
There ’s a selection of two modes : dumb and Soft , the latter allowing for some knowingness of your surroundings but not to the extent of the Transparency mode . With the still modal value on , the Focal Bathys ’ ANC is dependable – strong even – but not the best at this cost .
These headphones are plan for travel , but not the grind of the daily commute . They reduce the intensity of sounds rather than dismiss them completely .
Nevertheless , they offer good noise - cancelling on the London Tube , keeping most of the meretricious noise at bay and ensuring music can still be hear ( though no earpiece can survive the quick journey from Brixton to Stockwell with all its wit inviolate , it seems ) . The silence that these headphones get is in effect , with minimal disruption walk through the streets of London , and though traffic can be hear , with euphony on interruption is minimum .
It helps that the ‘ flashiness ’ of music is good , so I do n’t feel as if I need to raise the mass to mask sounds . The earphone can be pretend by hump in the potholed roads of London a little but not by much .
Where they are less astute is at suppressing mass ’s voice , which are n’t quiet enough that I ca n’t hear citizenry speak as they walk past . On averylong flying to China , and comparing them against theBowers & Wilkins Px8 , the Px8 were the more successful in reducing cabin haphazardness , which was louder with the Focals .
The Bathys ’ transparency mode is very good : clear and natural . The sounds passed through add up across as lifelike for the most part . It ’s a little snappy in tone , and there ’s perhaps some noise , though I think that ’s down to the phone amplifying speech sound . External sounds are louder with the transparency mode on than they are with the headphones off .
Battery life is both easy and hard to quantify . Focal say the Bathys are good for 30 minute shelling , but in my tests they seem able to go on and on . Seven 60 minutes into a assault and battery drain and they were still at 100 % .
A few days later on I try again and three hours later they were still at 100 % . On another occasion the headphones shake off to 90 % after twenty minutes , but all in all , they ’re long lasting , at least with an aptX Adaptive Bluetooth connectedness . Fast - charging is patronise with 15 bit providing five more hours .
With Bluetooth 5.1 reenforcement , the wireless functioning is splendid . There was only the brief stammer walking through Waterloo post , but otherwise it came through that surface area and Victoria place unharmed . Around London and on public transfer it has n’t function into any publication .
Bluetooth cyclosis equals SBC , AAC , aptX and aptX Adaptive , and there isGoogle Fast Pairto connect to Android devices promptly . You also get Bluetooth multipoint for associate to two gimmick at once .
If you ’re a fan of digital assistants the Focal Bathys has room forAmazon Alexaand Google Assistant , and it has ‘ Made for iPhone ’ credential so it ’s probable to be in sync with Siri too . You ’ll need to choose which assistant you want activate in the share Focal & Naim app .
The app is well-situated to navigate , uncontaminating in appearance , and with some way to custom-make the Bathys ’ experience . There are EQ presets ( Home , Dynamic , Loudness ) as well as the ability to produce your own in a five - isthmus alternative .
you may skip that and activate the Mimi Defined Sound Personalisation , which craft an optimal sound visibility for your ears once you ’ve become through a ‘ earreach ’ trial .
you could line up the noise - cancellation and cleverness of the LED backlight ( Off , Dim , or Bright ) ; check the battery life , what codec you ’re streaming in , adjust Sidetone for calls , and perform firmware updates . It ’s presented in a simple , accessible manner .
Call quality is among the honest . The Focal Bathys pick up and isolates voice well . The person on the other goal of the job posit they could n’t get wind anything around me at a food for thought market ; while walk past route works and the headphones picked up a drill , but it did n’t distract from what I was say . Over a twenty second call , the execution was consistently ripe .
Sound Quality
The Focal Bathys boast the stigma ’s patented Aluminium / Magnesium “ M”-dome driver that it enjoin delivers ‘ naturally elaborated phone with impingement ’ , with deep basso , mild treble reproduction and a clean mid - range ‘ for an extremely precise phone ’ . That ’s a just jumping off point , as it would appear that Focal has achieved much of what it put out to do .
The Bathys offer up a crisp , fresh , and defined performance without sound too precipitous or too severe . It ’s a more natural auditory sensation than the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 delivers , as the Focal is the more musical and menstruate of the two , to the point in time where it sounds quite effortless .
They ’re perfectly loud at their default volume , but raise it up and there ’s more grammatical construction to be had from a play of Too Hip to Retire from the Whiplash soundtrack ; conveying pertinent dynamism on both a small and tumid scale , as well as infusing the raceway with a bit more energy . The way Focal defines instruments is clean , the timbre of the instruments sounds accurate , the public presentation is one in which I feel swept away by the Bathys .
Playing Joe Hisashi ’s Water Traveller and the Focal presents a more fluid and insightful sound than the Px8 , capturing the sweeping movements of the orchestra with more thrust , energy , and cheek ; as well as sounding knifelike and clearer to the Bowers harder tone .
The more inert , crisper approach of the Focal extracts a well-defined midrange performance from Faye Webster ’s Sometimes , describe her spokesperson with more crispness , as well as greater levels of uncloudedness and definition . While with Gregory Porter ’s Concorde the Bathys repeats the same trick , capturing his inflections a little better for a more natural presentation .
Switching to the mellow oftenness with Isfar Sarabski ’s Déjà vu , the triple note of hand are pitched with more neutrality and clarity , the Bathys reproduces the forte-piano in a more delicate mode whereas the Px8 exudes more warmth .
The Focal does n’t always have its own means with every track . With Whiplash there ’s a crisper high-pitched frequency performance , but the grade of item the Bathys and Px8 summon seem similar , and in some piece of the caterpillar track , the way the Bowers organize the soundstage picks out instrument slightly better than on the Focal .
And I do n’t necessarily hold with Focal ’s assertion of the Bathys havingdeepbass . With Busta Rhymes ’ tinge It , it does n’t gas as big a performance as the Px8 , though its broken frequence carrying out is clearer .
Another comparing with the excellent Dali IO-12 and the Focal put in the preferred execution with Janelle Monae ’s Ca n’t populate Without You Love ; the Bathys the clear and better defined of the two , though I ’d say that the Dali attempts a more convincing sense of depth with the theatrical production of her voice and backing vocals than the relatively flat Bathys .
In price of bass voice output against the Dali , that ’s an area where the Focal Bathys offer more clarity with Justice ’s Genesis but a little less energy .
There ’s also the choice of listening through the 3.5 mm and USB - C cables . The headphones own the same characteristic as they do with their wireless execution , but with a more svelte sense of detail and fidelity .
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Should you buy it?
The Focal Bathys offer splendid audio quality , beating the Px8 and Dali IO-12 on that front , and feature superbly unequaled look and hard habitus caliber .
If it ’s ANC you involve , the ilk of theSony WH-1000XM5andBose QuietComfort Ultra Headphonesare better and less expensive .
Final Thoughts
Are the Focal Bathys the good - sounding earphone at their price ? I ’d say yes , setting their stall out with a performance ladle with clarity , detail , and effortless naturalism . The noise - cancellation is n’t as solid as some challenger but dispenses with ambient sound well enough . Call tone , wireless execution , and electric battery spirit are all fantabulous .
There are other options such as the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 and Dali IO-12 , but another headphone I ’ll throw into the tintinnabulation is theMaster & Dynamic MW75 . Less expensive at £ 549/$599 RRP with a crisp and urbane performance that take a leak the Focal Bathys speech sound tranquil by comparison , it has a wider soundstage and stronger bass . Its ANC is n’t the best nor is it ladened with feature film but it ’s less expensive .
Focal ’s first wireless headphone do n’t appear to have compromised much in its goal of high character sound . The Focal Bathys are excellent premium headphones . For more choice , check out ourBest Headphonesguide .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every set of headphones we reexamine soundly over an lengthened flow of time . We use industry received tests to liken features properly . We ’ll always say you what we find . We never , ever , take money to go over a product .
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FAQs
Focal say the Bathys can last for thirty hours , but in our tests on the aptX Adaptive Bluetooth connector , we reckon they can last for foresightful than that figure .
