Up next in 10
Tired of mediocre sound reproduction by your budget headphones or earbuds? It's time to upgrade to the true audiophile experience from Cleer Audio with its NEXT Wired Audiophile Headphones. Tech expert and music aficionado Dave Taylor auditions and comments on the Cleer NEXT and finds that there's lots to like with its excellent music reproduction and solid, aluminum construction and ironless magnesium drivers.
Check it out at: https://amzn.to/3P3apJy
Then visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
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0:00
Beautiful high-res headphones from Clear Audio. Let's check them out
0:11
Dave Taylor here, and I've been looking at Clear Audio gear for a long time
0:15
They make really nice Bluetooth headphones, earbuds, a whole variety of different things
0:20
This is something new for them. This is the Clear Next. It's an audiophile headphone, and it is wired only
0:28
Now, it looks like it's unwired because I don't have the wires plugged in
0:32
I wanted to show you, this is a heavy-duty cord. This is a quad-core, four-conductor cable
0:39
These only work wired, so you have a big connector on the bottom
0:44
You have that 3.5mm, and it also comes with a quarter-inch adapter
0:49
You can just plug that in, and you can plug this into old-school hi-fi gear
0:54
or guitar amp, or whatever it is you want to use. Or, of course, you can just simply use it like this
1:00
Now, what I've been doing to audition these is I have the iFi Audio Go Bar
1:06
which is a little, tiny DAC amplifier, and it works great. It has lightning connector on one end, so I just plug it straight into my phone
1:15
I've been listening to Tidal. I use this. I then plug in the headphones wire to one end of it
1:23
and then plug these into the headphones themselves. Let's get this right. This is left, so that goes on to the left side
1:30
You'll notice that it plugs in, in the side of the earcup, rather than the bottom
1:37
It's a much more common design to have these plug in at the bottom
1:41
but it's interesting that Clear has made this decision so that there's less strain on the bottom
1:47
and it just makes for a nice, comfortable experience. Obviously, my wire's a little tangled up right now, but that's okay
1:55
They're super comfortable, really easy to listen to. They feature 40mm ironless magnesium drivers that give you 10,000 to 45,000 Hz of frequency response
2:07
Honestly, way better than my hearing. It's 92 decibels of sensitivity. I'm going to try to untangle this a bit while we're talking
2:16
And a 16 ohm impedance. Now, that's worth mentioning that 16 ohms is really pretty low
2:22
What that means is that your phone or your laptop or your tablet
2:27
are going to be perfectly capable of driving these headphones and giving you nice sound
2:32
One of the things to note is that it is an open-back design
2:36
so when you have these on, you can still hear environmental noise around you
2:41
So, what you'll do is what everyone else does, which is compensate by turning the volume up a little bit
2:46
which is totally worth it because they sound fantastic. I'll come back to the sound in a minute
2:52
Now, let me tell you, it's an aluminum alloy and sheepskin, and then the earpieces themselves have memory foam
2:59
so it's super comfortable and it's a very luxurious finish, and they just feel really soft
3:05
Sheepskin is basically like a leather, but it's just a little bit softer than I guess our cows have
3:13
Like I said, the cable itself, this is one of the heaviest-duty headphone cables I've seen in a while
3:19
and you want that because you don't want any distortion or noise
3:23
or crosstalk between the different channels. You want a full immersive experience, and these give you just that
3:30
They are tuned for high-res audio, so obviously, if you use something that's not a high-res source
3:36
it's still going to sound fantastic, but if you actually give it high-res, like Tidal can do or Qobuz can do
3:43
then you're going to get an even better sound, and you might be thinking, well, you know, all well and good
3:49
They look kind of big and clunky and heavy, and they're really not. They're 14 ounces or 400 grams, and they're extremely comfortable
3:57
They've really got that sort of headband, just the right tension so that when I put them on my head
4:05
I could easily listen to this for hours on end, and I have done so
4:09
In fact, I've been listening to just the original Stan Getz Quartet
4:13
just classic jazz from, I don't know, the 60s, the 50s, somewhere in that era
4:18
and, oh, man, the sound. Let's talk about the sound because they just sound beautiful
4:25
There's a real precision and clarity to the sound, a huge soundstage
4:31
and there's no particular frequency that's, like, amplified or anything, so when I listen to some electronica, I got the drop, I got the great dance beat
4:41
but when I then switch to something more classical or like a jazz quartet or something
4:46
then just the technical accuracy of the sound was super enjoyable. They just are a very immersive pair of headphones
4:55
It's really easy, especially if you have something like a DAC and preamp
4:59
or you have a really good audio source, it's really easy to just get lost in your music
5:04
and, you know, a lot of times we listen to music as background while we're doing something else
5:09
and this probably is not optimal for that because what'll happen is you'll, like, put these on
5:14
you'll put on your favorite music, you'll be working, and then you'll realize you're not paying attention to work anymore
5:20
because you're just listening to the music and hearing a clarity and a detail
5:25
that you probably never heard before on other headphones. Really, really nice
5:30
Now, we do need to talk about the price, but before we get there, let me just say that it does come with this little adapter
5:37
but it also comes with this nice carrying pouch, and the pouch has space in one side for the cable and our little adapter
5:46
I'll just go ahead and zip this closed so I know where it is, and then the other side actually has this, like, silk interior
5:54
I'm not exactly sure what the material is, but it's a very soft interior, leather exterior
6:00
You fold the whole thing up, and you are good to go, and it even has the clear logo on it
6:05
So much to like here. It's just a really beautiful pair of headphones, and, you know
6:10
I already have other people in my office fighting over who gets to keep these
6:15
after we're done with the review, but I'm going to keep them myself because they're that good
6:20
and it's that enjoyable an experience listening to your favorite music on these
6:24
Really, really lots to like. So, yes, we do need to talk about the price
6:29
So, these are the Clear Next Audio File Headphones, but hold on
6:34
Before we get to the actual price, I'm going to ask if you could subscribe to my channel
6:38
Click or tap on that subscribe button. Click or tap on that bell notification to turn on notifications
6:44
and we're connected. And, heck, you know, if you found this to be valuable and useful for your own
6:51
actually, like, purchase decision making and such, then go ahead and give me a like or a thumbs up
6:56
Really appreciate when you do that. Okay. These are the Clear Next Audio File Headphones
7:05
and they are $699.99, currently discounted down to $599.99 at Amazon.com. I will be pretty darn confident that if you acquire these
7:17
you're going to fall in love when the first album you listen to, first CD you listen to, first dozen tracks you listen to, they're that good
7:26
Whatever kind of music you enjoy, the precision of their reproduction and the nice, even reproduction across frequencies
7:34
just brings out so much more detail in every piece of music that you're going to listen to
7:39
Definitely worth listening. And I'm going back to Stan Getz. So I, hang on just a sec, there we go
7:46
will have to catch you in my next video. ♪♪♪��
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