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Focal Bathys MG: Two-minute review
And you thought Focal’s first wireless over-ear noise-cancelling headphones were expensive…
The French company has had a good long think about things, developed an all-new magnesium driver, one with an ‘M’-shaped dome, and built it in-house. The company has then added a lovely new ‘chestnut’ finish and badged the resulting model ‘Bathys MG’. Oh, and then slapped an uber-premium price ticket on it.
Remarkably, the Bathys MG go quite a long way to justifying that asking price. They’re beautifully built and finished, and really look the part. They have potent battery life, and will remain comfortable even if you drain that battery in one sitting. They will function as a USB DAC if you want to use them for desktop or office listening. And they have way more positives than negatives when it comes to the sound those fancy-pants drivers can serve up.
Some of the best headphones money can buy then? Well, nothing’s perfect, and the Focal lack the wireless codec compatibility that could absolutely maximise their Bluetooth performance – it only takes a moment’s comparison of their sound when running via USB-C to the wireless equivalent to realise this. And while their active noise-cancellation is pretty good, ‘pretty good’ doesn’t approach ‘class-leading’ at this sort of money.
As with sound quality, though, the overall positives outweigh the negatives to a considerable degree. If you’ve the headroom in your bank account, the Focal Bathys MG have plenty to recommend them.
Focal Bathys MG review: Price & release date
- Released March 26th, 2025
- $1299 / £999 / AU$2299
The Focal Bathys MG were announced on March 26, 2025 and went on sale the following month.
Eyebrows were raised at the revelation of the asking price, and it seems fair to say they haven’t really been lowered since – Focal has pitched these headphones at the very outer edge of the wireless over-ear market, where only rarefied alternatives from the likes of Audio Technica, Bang & Olufsen and Mark Levinson serve as competition…
Focal Bathys MG review: Specs
|
Type |
Over-ear, closed-back, noise-cancelling |
|
Drivers |
40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome |
|
Weight |
350g |
|
Battery life |
30h (wireless); 35h (hard-wired); 42h (DAC mode) |
|
Connectivity |
5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility, 3.5mm, USB-C DAC connectivity |
Focal Bathys MG review: Features
- 40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome dynamic drivers
- Bluetooth: 5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility
- Will function as a 24bit/192kHz USB-DAC
When you’re asking absolutely top dollar for a pair of wireless over-ear noise-cancelling headphones, there are a lot of ‘features’ boxes that need a thorough ticking. With the Bathys MG, it seems fair to say Focal has dealt with most, but not all, of them.
The headline, the thing Focal seems most proud of, and the feature that goes furthest in separating the Bathys MG from their more affordable Bathys sibling, is the 40mm magnesium ‘M’-dome dynamic driver that produces the sound. These drivers are made in Focal’s workshops in France and, according to the company, deliver a frequency response of 10Hz – 22kHz. The measurable distortion is vanishingly low, and Focal is bullish about the sonic power and clarity this design is capable of serving up.
Getting information on board the headphones in order for those drivers to do their thing can be achieved in a few different ways. Obviously the Bathys MG are wireless headphones, and use Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX Adaptive codec compatibility for wireless connectivity – which is fine as far as it goes, but it could be argued that it doesn’t go far enough. Bluetooth 5.4 represents the cutting edge right now, and codecs like LDAC and, especially, aptX Lossless offer optimum sound quality. LC3 and Auracast are also increasingly common in wireless designs that sell for significantly less than this, but the Focal go without. At least the Bathys MG feature multi-point connectivity.
There’s a 3.5mm analogue input on the edge of the right earcup, so the Bathys MG can be hard-wired to a source of music – an in-flight entertainment system, for instance – when wireless transmission is not available. And the USB-C slot that’s nearby not only allows for battery charging but also turns the headphones into a USB DAC – make a digital connection to a source of music and the Bathys MG can deal with 24bit/192kHz hi-res content like the best of the standalone headphone DACs we’ve tested. Just select the correct position on the little ‘off/DAC/on’ slider on the right ear cup and you’re in business.
On the subject of the battery, it’s worth noting the Focal cannot be used passively – no power, no sound. But given that battery life is around 30 hours when using Bluetooth, 35 hours via the analogue connection or an epic 42 hours when operating as a USB DAC, you’d have to be pretty negligent to run dry. And should the worst happen, the fast-charging function means that 15 minutes of mains power should equate to five hours of playback.
Focal Bathys MG review: Sound quality
- Spacious, insightful and energetic sound
- Punchy and dynamic presentation
- Treble response can be goaded
Conext, of course, is everything. The Focal Bathys MG get almost everything right when it comes to the way they sound – but when you’re asking four figures for a pair of headphones, ‘almost’ means you’ve come up slightly short.
The stuff that’s enjoyable is a much longer list than the stuff that isn’t, though, so I might as well start here. The Bathys MG are a beautifully open, organised and detailed listen – the stage they create is spacious and properly defined, and there isn’t an event that happens on it that’s too fleeting, too minor or too transient to be overlooked. The Focal are absolutely hawk-like in their attention to detail, and their ability to identify and contextualise every single incident in a recording makes them one of the most out-and-out revealing headphones I’ve heard in a good long while.
No matter it it’s Talk Talk’s timeless Spirit of Eden as a DSD64 file being delivered via aptX Bluetooth or a 24bit/192kHz FLAC file of I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You by Aretha Franklin served up by the Bathy MG functioning as a USB DAC, they communicate in the most relentless and articulate fashion. Low frequencies are textured and endlessly varied, and so carefully controlled that rhythmic expression is never an issue. The word ‘revealing’ is almost too weak a way to describe the way the Focal handle the midrange – Aretha’s peerless technique and exquisite tone is translated in the most eloquent manner imaginable.
Switch to a 24bit/48kHz FLAC file of James Holden’s Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities and the dynamic headroom the Bathy MG demonstrate, as well as the straightforward punch and attack, is deeply impressive. There’s real momentum to this recording, and the Focal describe it in full and with complete confidence.
The whole frequency range hangs together well, and frequency response is smooth and even too. Really, it’s only at the top end that any shortcomings are apparent – and for most of the time, they’re latent rather than overt. Treble sounds are slightly distinct in their tonality from the rest of the frequency range – there’s an edginess, a willingness to bite, that puts them at odds somewhat with everything else that’s going on. Very big volumes and/or sharp-edged recordings are no friends of the treble response of these headphones.
Otherwise, it’s only the active noise-cancellation that sounds the mildest of bum notes. There’s no shame in having to play second fiddle to Bose when it comes to ANC – everyone else is too, after all. But the job the Bathys MG do on external sounds is not complete. They damp down ambient noise, of course, and do so without altering their sonic characteristics in any way or leaving a sensation of counter-signal – but if it’s complete negation of external noise you’re after, you won’t get it here.
- Sound quality score: 4.5/5
Focal Bathys MG review: Design
- Excellent standard of build and finish
- Premium materials look and feel good
- Rigid carry-case with a selection of cables
Within the inevitable constraints of over-headphone design, Focal has done good work with the Bathys MG. Whether or not a pair of headphones can ever look or feel like they cost four figures is debatable, but there’s no arguing with the standard of construction, the industrial design or the quality of the materials involved here.
At 350g the Focal are of manageable weight, and their clamping force and hanger arrangement allow them to stay comfortable for hours on end. This is helped in a fairly big way by the use of leather and padded microfibre for the headband, and similarly padded pleather for the (replaceable) ear pads. The bulk of the frame is of aluminium or hard-wearing plastic, and the design on the ear cups (first seen on the original Focal Bathys) helps these headphones look distinctive and up-market. The ‘chestnut’ colour, which shifts subtly as the light changes, is very agreeable – and the in-app ability to adjust the intensity of the lighting of the stylised company logo on each ear cup is a nice touch too.
The app itself is on the brief side, but those few functions it does include are useful and well-implemented. A five-band EQ has some presets and the ability to save custom settings, noise-cancellation can be toggled between ‘transparent’, ‘soft’ and ‘silent’, and there’s a ‘Mimi’ test to help the headphones set themselves up to suit your specific hearing profile.
Voice-control is available via your player’s native assistant – there are four mics in each earcup taking care of these interactions as well as telephony and ANC. And there are some physical controls, almost all on the right earcup – the classic three-button strip takes care of volume up/down, play/pause, skip forwards/backwards and Bluetooth pairing, and there’s a button to wake your voice assistant. There’s that on/off/DAC slider too, of course. And on the left ear cup, there’s a button that lets you cycle through your ANC options.
The Bathys MG arrive in a rigid travel case (which is not as big as it might be, given that they don’t fold beyond some articulation in the ear cup yokes). It includes a couple of 1.2m cables of very acceptable quality – one is a 3.5mm analogue number, the other a USB-C.
Focal Bathys MG review: Value
- Great standard of build, from premium materials
- Good battery life, extremely enjoyable sound
- Not the last word in wireless technology
Obviously these are expensive headphones – so it’s mildly surprising that the Focal Bathys MG go so far towards offering value for money. They’re nicely made, look good, use upmarket materials and have quite a few technical highlights – not least their driver technology.
The uptick in performance when used as a USB DAC compared to the wireless equivalent does make me wish for LDAC or, better still, aptX Lossless compatibility though – then we’d be talking about value for money that would be very difficult indeed to argue with.
Should I buy the Focal Bathys MG?
|
Section |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Features |
No power, no sound when wired, and no Auracast or LC3 in an otherwise beautiful setup |
4/5 |
|
Sound quality |
Practically perfect… just a shade off excellent for ANC and treble response |
4.5/5 |
|
Design |
Lovely colorway and classy build, but LDAC wireless support would’ve been ideal |
4.5/5 |
|
Value |
A touch surprising, given the asking fee, but they’re not bad value at all… |
4/5 |
Buy them if…
Don’t buy them if…
Focal Bathys MG: Also consider
How I tested the Focal Bathys MG
- Wirelessly connected to an iPhone 14 Pro and a FiiO M15S
- Hard-wired via USB-C to a MacBook Pro
- For quite a long time
An Apple iPhone 14 Pro tops out with the AAC codec, of course – but a FiiO M15S can offer aptX to the Bathys MG, and doesn’t have the distraction of a native voice-assistant either.
For home listening, I listened to the Focal as a USB DAC via a USB-C connection to my MacBook Pro – the laptop is running Colibri software in order to get access to 24bit/192kHz content.
I listened for longer than I needed to, quite honestly, because it was no kind of hardship – and I listened to lots of different types of music, and lots of different file types and sizes.
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