Focal Bathys High-Fidelity Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones Review – Born Under Punches
The Bathy were loaned to us by Focal for review and will be returned to them. You can buy them on Amazon or here: https://www.focal.com/products/bathys
I’ve owned or heard a lot of Focal in the two channel realm; all have been beautifully built and at least credible, though I’ve sometimes enjoyed some their cheaper models like the Cobalt and Electra more than some of their higher-shelf offerings. Curious that they waited until 2023 to enter the TWS space, though the $700 Bathys is certainly an auspicious debut.
Unlike more restrained high-ticket peers like B&W and Levinson, the Bathys go for a bold, modernistic design which, if nothing else, looks expensive. I’m generally okay with the look, though I don’t understand why they chose to print the singularly unsexy phrase “Aluminum-Magnesium” on the headshells and I absolutely hate the illuminated logo, which mercifully can be turned off in the app. The physical control buttons aren’t optimally placed and required some learning curve, but do work reliably. BT connection is instantaneous; 30 hr. battery isn’t class-leading but adequate.
Included Accessories:
- Carrying case included : Yes
- Carrying case depth : 7 cm /
- Carrying case height : 24 cm /
- Carrying case width : 21 cm /
- Cables provided :
• 1 x 4ft (1.2m) Jack 1/8″ (3.5mm) cable
• 1 x 4ft (1.2m) USB-C® cable
With their large earcups and hefty 350g weight, the Bathys aren’t optimal for mobile use, and (depending upon your threshold for exhibitionism) they’re a bit fancy for the gym. They’re also too flashy to survive an entire NYC subway ride. However for long Laz-Z-Boy sessions, I found them to be pretty stable and comfortable, well-padded and without undue clamping pressure. Fitment, BTW, is critical with these; they’ll lose dynamism and thump unless the drivers sit precisely over your ear canals.
The accompanying Focal & Naim app is straightforward, with custom EQ (functional, though more granularity than five bands would be better) and a sophisticated hearing test/sound personalization function. ANC works better than others have claimed, if not quite at Bose or Sony levels, though some high frequency info intrudes and it does has a subtle, but audible effect of softening the presentation (curiously, it also attenuates low bass). Since I used these primarily in quiet indoor settings I kept the ANC off.
I’ve always had a notion of a Focal “house sound”—dry, neutral to slightly bright, with a lot of high-end energy and detail. Instead, the Bathys surprise with a rich-textured, warm tonality which (prior to EQ) stresses the lower frequencies. Soundstage is reasonably wide and enveloping and layering is flawless; these capture orchestral and other complex arrangements deftly. Other than a slight dip in the midbass frequencies, coherence is good.
Broken down further, bass is full, quite deep and just slightly billowy (as opposed to taut and sculpted), which gives the Bathys a swingy, in-concert feel. Mids are likewise full-sounding and resonant, while treble, to my surprise, is slightly rounded with less fine detail and extension than expected. The overall effect is vinyl-like and non-fatiguing; in contrast to something like the AirPods Max, the highs aren’t artificially juiced to create the impression of more detail; the Bathys wholly avoid sterility or unnatural brightness. Correspondingly, the Focal present less high end information than comparably-priced wired planar phones like the Audeze LCD-2 or even conventional dynamics like the Senn HD650; the Focal are more powerful than revealing and nuances like cymbal crashes or woodwind trills are very slightly blunted.
Changing to the USB DAC mode with the included USB-C cable presents basically the same sound signature, albeit with more detail retrieval at the high end and, since you’re not using a BT codec, you’ll hear less compression and a bit more precise instrument separation. You can also bypass the (excellent) onboard DAC and listen through the 3.5mm input, although because the Bathys utilize active amplification you’ll still need to turn the phones on; in any mode you’ll hear a slightly less quiet background than with passive wired phones.
I compared the Bathys to my BT mainstays, the Sony XM4 and the Sennheiser Momentum 4. Tonally, the Sony aren’t too far removed from the Focal—warm, smooth and full-bodied—and the Sony’s soundstage and instrument separation are comparable. However, the Focal simply sound bigger, ballsier and truer to source, with considerable more bass punch and dynamic contrasts.
The Senn is a closer match—its low end thump and overall coherence rival the Focal, but the Focal again has a more accurate timbre and sound less processed and artificial, especially at the higher frequencies; the Focal also presents more midrange information and dense passages which are well sorted out on the Focal sound somewhat blurry on the Senn. Above all, there’s a palpable physicality to the Focal; they rock.
Ultimately, as a BT phone the Bathys can’t transcend the limitations of their technology—as good as they are they still sound like Bluetooth, and they can’t replicate the dead quiet background and uncompressed tonality of comparably-priced wired models. They also eschew the hyper-revealing high-end resolution of more “audiophile-tuned” phones; they are not optimized for detail freaks.
That said, they’re a cut above the mainstream players; having sampled some of their premium peers I’d opine the Bathys are about as good as BT currently gets. Considering the opulent design and bulletproof build (and considering Apple commands $550 for the decidedly less elegant, less musical Airpods Max), I would also deem them a good value at $700—they look and sound expensive.
My unresolved issue with the Bathys is defining how and where I would use them—they’re unwieldy on the go, and at the same price I’d probably opt for a more traditional wired phone for desktop use. Maybe lazing on the back porch or retreating into my studio to paint my next masterpiece. I’d like to see a lighter weight, more utilitarian version in the future, but on their own terms the Bathys work just fine.
Specifications Focal Bathys
- Product type : Bluetooth closed headphones with active noise reduction
- Loudspeakers :
15/8″ (40mm) Aluminium/Magnesium ‘M’-shaped dome - Frequency response (+/- 3dB) :
15 Hz – 22 kHz - Harmonic distortion rate : <0.2 % @1kHz
- Weight : 350 g / 0.77 lb
- Autonomy :
30h in Bluetooth
35h with mini jack connection
42h in USB DAC mode - Battery type : Lithium-ion 1060 mAH
- Charging time : 1.5 h
- Quick charge : Yes
- Bluetooh version : 5.1 Multipoint
- Bluetooth Codec : AAC, aptX™, aptX™ Adaptive, SBC
- Connector :
Jack 3.5 mm,USB-C - Microphones : 8.0000
- Voice assistant : Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant
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