“A beautifully-designed headphone with impressive sonics”: Focal Lensys Professional review

What is it?

When recommending headphones we tend to advise using open-back designs for critical listening and closed-back designs for recording. This is solid advice as the former tend to be lighter and more comfortable to wear, delivering better overall sonics. Meanwhile the latter offer better passive attenuation and prevent bleed, so you can turn them up nice and loud when recording. That said, well-designed closed-back headphones can potentially be used for all tasks. Lensys Professional from Focal is a headphone that aims to do just this.

Focal is well established in the headphone and audiophile space, producing both wired and wireless designs in both open-back and closed-back formats. Focal’s professional range currently includes the open-back Clear MG model and also the more affordable closed-back Listen model. In terms of price, the new Lensys Professional sits between the two. However, the Lensys Professional looks much closer to the Clear MG in terms of physical design and component choice.

The Lensys features Focal’s own 40mm aluminium/magnesium ‘M’ dome drivers. These combine excellent damping with great rigidity. Meanwhile, the pads combine thermosensitive, high-resilience memory foam with a microfibre and acoustic fabric covering. A similar material covers the underside of the head band. The ear pads certainly have a different feel to the more springy velour-covered pads found on many comparable designs.

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Performance

The Lensys Professional looks similar to other Focal models such as the Hadenys and Azurys, and this design is very slick and less bulky than many of the premium studio headphones we see. In the box you get the headphones, two branded cables (one straight and one coiled), a 3.5 to 6.3mm screw-in adapter and a hard shell carry case.

Looking at the outside of the ear cups with their distinctive perforated back panel it’s not immediately obvious that these are a closed-back design. Of course, when you put them on, the very noticeable passive isolation instantly tells you otherwise. Connection is via the left ear cup only, which is a bit inflexible, however the inclusion of a coiled cable is very welcome.

Head band adjustment is gently notched and there’s plenty of ear cup rotation. Indeed, you can fold the ear cups flat for storage in the hard shell case. All cabling is hidden inside the hinges and head band, which is a nice touch. The headphones are very comfortable and at just over 300 grams – quite light for a closed-back design. That said, the streamlined narrow headband isn’t quite as comfortable as a wider band.

The sound is definitely more direct than you get from open-back designs, and focused on the mid range. This can be more fatiguing at higher volumes. The bottom end is tight and, although we found no obvious tail off until about 50Hz, the overall balance does not hype the low frequencies. It’s a similar story with the high frequencies, with no obvious air added to the top end. From a listening perspective this is good for mixing and even better for tracking, when you want to be able to differentiate your performance from other instruments and sounds. Being closed-back, you can of course turn them up pretty loud without too much bleed. That said, from a purely listening perspective we found the Lensys Professional less satisfying than good open-back headphones.

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Verdict

Overall, the Lensys Professional is a beautifully-designed headphone with impressive sonics. The streamlined design not only suits long listening spells, but we think makes them just about compact enough to wear out. Meanwhile the closed-back design makes them perfect for recording.

Hands-on demos

FOCAL

NEW | Lensys Professional : Accuracy. Anywhere. - YouTube

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Alternatives

OLLO Audio R1: £359 at olloaudio.com

OLLO’s closed-back design delivers excellent isolation and comes with a five-year warranty.

Read more about OLLO Audio R1

Beyerdynamic DT 1770 Pro Mk2: £480 at Thomann

Excellent multipurpose closed-back studio headphones from this long-established manufacturer.

Read the full Beyerdynamic DT 1770 Pro Mk2 review

Specifications