Introduction
Focal Celestee, at the entrance of the high end class, impresses with its design. It’s a very good headphone in many respects, but it has its own hater base. But are they right? We’ll find out at the end of this review. I acquired the product myself for the purpose of writing an independent review.

Buid & Design
Celestee comes in a big box with a gorgeous and 10/10 quality carrying case. Aside its own cable, it comes with a 3.5mm to 6.35mm adapter. Apart from a few pieces of paper, that’s all the contents of the box. I can safely say that the materials used are all great and support the premium feel.
Eye-catching navy blue and brass. I want to talk to you about why this and other Focal headphones are monochromatic. It’s a kind of premium accent and you can see it in other types of products. It says that color, shape, design belongs to that brand and that product. It almost shouts in your face “yes, these headphones should be navy blue”. You can see it, they are right. Celestee looks incredible.

Weight
I know you’re intimidated by one thing: the 430 grams weight. You might think it’s too heavy. If it was any other company we might be talking about this, but Focal is the epitome of engineering. The headband, the pads, the amount of pressure and load distribution are very well adjusted. You never feel 430 grams. Focal Celestee is very comfortable.
Some Acoustic Solutions
When you look inside the cabins, you will see that the drivers are not in the center, they are positioned a little bit in front and at an angle. There are many companies that do this, it’s an acoustic arrangement to set the stage more accurately. This also includes the cutouts in the Focal logo that you see when you look at the headphones from the outside. Yes, this is a closed-back headphone, the sound is refined by leaking some frequency waves through these micro-gaps. This is one of the methods used to prevent resonance. Another one is the spiky protrusions inside the cabinets. You can find images about this by surfing the internet a bit. I’m not going to smash my Celestee to show you this 🙂

Sound
Before I start talking about the sound, I would like to share some observations. In the criticisms attributed to the Focal Celestee, I often see the following phrases: “narrow soundstage” “the stage is not wide enough”… The truth is that Celestee has a pretty good soundstage for closed headphones. I find it unfair to stubbornly compare this headphone to open-back models.

Tonality
Aside from the obvious Focal touches, it’s a well-tuned example of a V-shape. It succeeds in conveying emotion and excitement. At this point, I must say that I find it a bit bright, which is a bit more than a personal preference. When choosing a source, I recommend choosing matches with a calmer character and not particularly bright.

Bass
Strong and natural. The amount of extension is perfect. Sub weight is just right. When I turn on Tool‘s The Pot, both the drums and the bass guitar wipe the rust from my ears. The other good thing is that it also has an incredible depth in electronic, pop and hip-hop music. If you listen to Billie Eilish – Bad Guy (especially the beginning) with Celestee, you will understand this very well.
Mid
The first thing I notice in the mid frequency range is that the vocals are much more focused than the instruments. Both in terms of positioning and tonal sense, vocals take up much more space. This is great in terms of conveying emotion, but in mixed tracks it can lead to a lean sound despite good separation and good texture. The instrument that suffers the most from this sparseness is the guitar. In general, the mid frequencies are not as exciting as the highs. Otherwise the timbre is natural. Speed and detail reproduction is good enough in this range.
Treble
The nice thing about the trebles is that they have almost no color. They’re more on the edges of the stage, and in the overall treble internal balance, the lower treble sounds a bit more prominent. There are some very delicate micro-dispersions in the air frequencies. Usually in complex tracks, it’s obvious when you listen very carefully. I don’t think it’s a problem. It’s not bad with extremely fast and consecutive cymbals. However, it excels in thin cymbals with low volume. I can hear the delicate and quite cymbals in Celestee and Opeth – To Bid You Farewell in full detail. I’m not talking about the sound the cymbal makes when it is struck. It’s the whole extension of the cymbal and the thinning of the sound in a split second.

Technics
When talking about the technical achievements of a high-end headphone, it is important to choose your words well. Celestee is quite successful in terms of resolution, detail reproduction, positioning accuracy and therefore imaging. Quiet and backgrounded instruments sound detailed and accurate without losing texture. Let’s come to the soundstage. Not narrow, not cramped. Is it too wide? No. It doesn’t have a mediocre soundstage as it is often mentioned, we can even say that it has a very good soundstage. But with a price tag of 1000 dollars, I can’t say more than average for the stage. Apart from that, the separation and layering are quite good, very rarely the separation is lacking, but that’s not a big problem. One of the Celestee’s good points is that the instrument sound is accurate and realistic regardless of tonality.
Synergy
During the test I found two very solid matches with very different characteristics (K11 R2R and Hipdac3). Before I tell you about them, I should say that the Focal Celestee is an easy to drive headphone. Still, that doesn’t mean that a dongle can compete with it. Even though I knew this, I tested it: Fiio K17 and Hiby Fc6 are not enough to drive the Celestee. It’s very important to use over-ear headphones with sources that can do them justice in terms of power.

Focal Celestee & FiiO K11 R2R
Known for great performance for the price and for being the cheapest R2R dac on the market, the K11 R2R pairs well with Celestee. Together these two beauties sound natural and a bit bright (due to the Celestee). The K11 R2R sounds more exciting at high gain and a bit calmer at medium gain. I prefer the medium gain mode. With the K11 R2R there is a transparent midrange and good microdetail reproduction. Tonally, I would say that the Celestee plays close to its character but more controlled. Imagine 10% less v-shape and a slightly more analog-like upper range.
Focal Celestee & Ifi Hipdac 3
Hipdac 3 is a very powerful portable source. The warm character of the Hipdac combined with the Celestee delivers a very exciting and dynamic sound. The lower frequencies are especially strong, but it doesn’t stop there. This duo shows exceptional texture and intensity in the lower frequencies and the amount of sub will make your head spin. Throughout the sound, Celestee’s V character is supported by Hipdac 3. Female vocals are front and center along with the bass. This setup gives you the highest possible entertainment factor. All the emotion in hip-hop, pop, R&B and EDM tracks is wonderfully conveyed. Listen to The Weekend’s Popular with this duo and you will want to dance.
The good thing is that you don’t sacrifice much of the midrange for all this. Although the vocals are clearly in front of the instruments, there is no loss of detail/texture in the instruments. However, it is clear that this duo is not suitable for everyone in terms of character. If you listen to classical, metal, rock, especially jazz and blues, the first pairing makes much more sense. For the rest of you fun-lovers, this duo is for you.

Last Words
When it comes down to it, the Focal Celestee is a pretty good headphone in the closed-back category. However, taking a step back, more affordable open-back models (especially planar ones) seem to be catching up technically. In this case, we have to weigh the pros and cons. The Celestee is a great-looking, good-sounding closed-back headphone that is a bit expensive these days. Although there are few peers in the closed-back category, when open-back models are included, there are headphones that do more for less money. The trick is to do it all closed back. Ultimately, the consumer’s buying preference depends on the usage scenario. I know people who bought Celestee because they didn’t prefer (or maybe had to) use open-back headphones and were very happy.