Ha!
Well, as JJ knows well, the Focal guys were in the house on Thursday. They have fixed the problem, which was due to the factory in China reworking diaphragms during the manufacturing process. These reworked diaphragms would subsequently fail in the field. (They did pass a pretty rigerous QC test before leaving the factory.) Focal found the issue and fixed the problem by demanding that any diaphragm that has a fault anywhere in the manufacturing process is rejected and cannot be reworked.
There was also a problem with the carry case in that it creates a tight seal on the cans when in the case, and if dropped creates a lot of pressure instantaniously on the drivers. This is fixed by changing the case so that it doesn't seal while in the case.
I'll be posting an in-depth article at the end of Jan on the headphones, the problem, the fix, and then a review of the cans. They're decent in the category. Not as good as the Momentum, about as good as the MDR-1R. A fairly good showing for their first product out of the shoot.
All in all, I find Focal took the problem seriously and have acted pretty damned transparently in the comms with me. A serious and well intentioned response to the problems it seems to me.
If you have a Spirit One headphone, put them on and rapidly squeeze them repeatedly against the side of your head. If you can hear the diaphragms crinkling, you can send your headphones in for replacement. If they do not crinkle, you probably don't have the problem, and you will be able to call in to the US distributer and get some replacement standoffs to attach to the case that will space the headphones a littl farther from the bottom of the case so that they don't seal and over-pressure the diaphragms. This service won't be ready until after CES so wait til I publish the article before contacting Audio Plus Services (the US distributor) to have cans replaced or get the case mods.
