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Audeze LCD-X Over Ear Open Back Headphone Review

trl

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Funny you say that. Bass is bass. There's no speed about it. What you could be hearing is the drum not the bass.
We all hear this "slow bass" and this is happening due to the inability of the drivers to accurately reproduce more bass notes at the same time. Basically, THD on low-end is so high that lower notes can not be accurately felt, so it's like a mixture of low-end waves, but without being able to hear each note.

Usually, with bass-head dynamic headphones, listeners can't perceive accurately the bass, but the impact is perfect. With planars all bass vibrations can be felt very good, probably due to the lower THD. This is why most people call this "fast bass".
 

JohnYang1997

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We all hear this "slow bass" and this is happening due to the inability of the drivers to accurately reproduce more bass notes at the same time. Basically, THD on low-end is so high that lower notes can not be accurately felt, so it's like a mixture of low-end waves, but without being able to hear each note.

Usually, with bass-head dynamic headphones, listeners can't perceive accurately the bass, but the impact is perfect. With planars all bass vibrations can be felt very good, probably due to the lower THD. This is why most people call this "fast bass".
No. Many people like me don't think hd600's(and 650)bass is slow. Just not very deep, not very tight, punchy when driven hard and sometimes humpy and thick. How does anyone make sense of bass being slow. Just doesn't make sense like at all. I also don't think people call planars fast bass. In general hifiman does make it sound fast. But it's just the treble sound. People just can't really understand what they are actually hearing. I never heard any talked about LCD's bass being fast. I only heard, punchy meaty deep.
 

Dreyfus

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Nowhere near different enough to justify massive 20 dBs peaks or dips in a narrow band
20 dB of narrow band discrepancy is nothing out of the ordinary. Ear canal resonances as a followup of the individual anatomy are a unique thing and can be very spontaneous when you put a small driver into a small cup, then put the thing onto you head and move it around. Not to mention driver angle and distance, shape and material of the pads, damping materials etc.

Don't expect a fixture to deliver any reliable data above 3-4 kHz. It's an average at best.

RAA publish compensated measurements without giving a target curve, or disclosing their measurement rig.
Maybe they fear the sound of rattling pitchforks induced by G.R.A.S. and B&K fanboys. ;)

Let's not forget that measuring headphones is a science practice of uncertainty after all.
 

Matias

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DualTriode

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Listen to the headphones with a filter cutting off the bass 100Hz and below and tell us about the kick drum and bass guitar. Is t fast slow or just missing.

My bench monitors are sealed boxes and roll off abruptly at 100Hz. Without the sub under the bench it is another world.

Thanks DT

Still want to see the HE400i review. Wait a couple weeks and I will do it.
 

Robbo99999

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Not sure I would agree with "not useable". Flawed by almost any measure but that line of thought (judging a transducer solely by measurements) is as subjective as raving about a deeply flawed device without measurements.

Edit, judging a transducer solely by its STOCK measurements.....
Well, it would be unuseable for me, I can't begin to imagine how bad it would sound with such deviations given that I know the Headphone Harman Target Curve suits me very accurately. I wouldn't even want to EQ that frequency response to the curve given it's wild & large deviations. In my experience having to use high Q filters on headphones yields the worst sounding results, and that LCD-X would require high Q filters (along with large Gains) to get it sufficiently close to the Harman Target Curve - so it's not suitable in my eyes. There's definitely better headphones to use as a base for EQ than this one, ones that are cheaper too.....better & cheaper by a long way!

To me what this review serves to demonstrate is that if you have a headphone with low distortion and high spl capability, you can dial in whatever FR target curve you want, and have excellent headphone sound.
In my experience there's a limit to how harsh you should be with the EQ variations, which is what I was talking about in my response to Jimbob above, so I'm not of the opinion that the stock frequency response doesn't matter.....I think it's important to have a stock frequency response that is as smooth as possible to allow for an easy & successful EQ, but I do think the other positive attributes you mentioned are important though.
 

DualTriode

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Harmon uses the K712 headphone to equalize to sound like other headphones.

If you want to change things up put some lipstick on the K712 headphone.
 

Jimbob54

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Well, it would be unuseable for me, I can't begin to imagine how bad it would sound with such deviations given that I know the Headphone Harman Target Curve suits me very accurately. I wouldn't even want to EQ that frequency response to the curve given it's wild & large deviations. In my experience having to use high Q filters on headphones yields the worst sounding results, and that LCD-X would require high Q filters (along with large Gains) to get it sufficiently close to the Harman Target Curve - so it's not suitable in my eyes. There's definitely better headphones to use as a base for EQ than this one, ones that are cheaper too.....better & cheaper by a long way!


In my experience there's a limit to how harsh you should be with the EQ variations, which is what I was talking about in my response to Jimbob above, so I'm not of the opinion that the stock frequency response doesn't matter.....I think it's important to have a stock frequency response that is as smooth as possible to allow for an easy & successful EQ, but I do think the other positive attributes you mentioned are important though.

I really think you should listen to more headphones without seeing measurements, even if just borrowed /swapped with friends. Don't limit yourself to those close to Harman as stock. This isn't the same as electronics. They don't sit on your ears.

Edit You'll also rule out the hd800(S) coming up, which would also be a shame.
 
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PeteL

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No. Many people like me don't think hd600's(and 650)bass is slow. Just not very deep, not very tight, punchy when driven hard and sometimes humpy and thick. How does anyone make sense of bass being slow. Just doesn't make sense like at all. I also don't think people call planars fast bass. In general hifiman does make it sound fast. But it's just the treble sound. People just can't really understand what they are actually hearing. I never heard any talked about LCD's bass being fast. I only heard, punchy meaty deep.
The wording for describing acoustic phenomenon is always quite flawed, when trying to match subjective impression with technical prowess, but I tought that post #73 did make some sense on describing "fast bass"
 

crinacle

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I use the Harman curve as a loose target. As with room EQ, the slope of bass versus treble is to taste. This is why my EQ is not trying to hug the curve. But rather, just making up for gross deficiencies.

So far I have tested some 10 headphones using Harman curves and I am quite warming up to its correctness based on equalization and hence listening tests. Directionally then it seems quite right.

I think a good middle ground would be to use the Harman Target but without the bass shelf; after all even in Harman's research there were large differences in bass emphasis preferences amongst respondents.

So whether or not one prefers no emphasis, 3dB emphasis or the full-fat 6dB, that would be up to the reader to decide. The Harman Target's bass boost is an average, not the objective representation of the entire population.
 

renaudrenaud

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I did not read all the posts. The first page, the cost and the results, for me it's just a confirmation of the brand fetishism.

I hope we will be able to see some "normal" budget price headphones with great performances, something like the JBL305P MkII, Elac DBR62, Wharfedale etc.

Thanks Amirm for the review.
 

Jimbob54

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And boy do they need a ton of EQ too.

Comfy though, and you can't beat forward projection in the soundstage

The one thing the 800's lost for me when I EQ'd was that holographic imaging- but I would trade that for the better FR post eq. Plus I can always flip the EQ off when I am less fussy after a couple of drinks and float away. Win-win
 

Robbo99999

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I really think you should listen to more headphones without seeing measurements, even if just borrowed /swapped with friends. Don't limit yourself to those close to Harman as stock. This isn't the same as electronics. They don't sit on your ears.

Edit You'll also rule out the hd800(S) coming up, which would also be a shame.
I don't think there's a massive amount of value in listening to lots & lots of headphones at stock because their frequency response varies so much from one model to the next that I think it would be like finding a needle in a haystack in terms of finding one that matches your HRTF. I think there's value in trying a few respected examples from certain types of headphone though, and I think there's value in EQ and experimenting with EQ to try to find something that matches closer to your HRTF and therefore closer to what reference speakers would sound like to you.

I have 3 quite different headphones that I've based my experience on, two open backs (AKG K702 & Sennheiser HD600) and a closed back (NAD HP50), which is a pretty good selection in terms of the two open backed headphones being quite different experiences even when EQ'd to the same curve, and then you've got the contrast of a closed back headphone that has really quite low bass distortion as well as great bass extension, and I've experimented with different EQ's on all of them....and I keep coming back to the Harman Curve for all of them, yet they all offer different experiences which is the main learning point that headphones do not sound the same even when EQ'd to the same frequency response.....they have very similar tonality but differ "spatially" and have different amounts of clarity overall and sometimes different amounts of clarity in specific sections like bass or treble. AKG K702 has been the best experience so far with fantastic imaging and a speaker-like feel rather than the "in-your-head" feel of HD600, so K702 is my favourite headphone now, all EQ'd to Harman Curve like I've said. I compare the sound of my headphones to my Harman Curve Room EQ'd JBL 308p Mkii speakers, so I do have a reference to compare against if you will.

I think the main gap for me to try in future would be a planar headphone, but really I'm super happy with the K702 after my experiences I've outlined.

EDIT: and to answer your question I definitely wouldn't rule out the Sennheiser HD800S, I mean I'm not gonna try it because it's too expensive, but it doesn't deserve to be ruled out because it has a fantastic reputation amoungst some experienced people here & elsewhere and has some great qualities, plus the frequency response is relatively easily fixed because it doesn't have massive deviations (unlike the headphone in this review), here you can see it can be brought back into line quite easily:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zsp3jucy5lsty0m/Sennheiser HD800S.pdf?dl=0
 
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Jimbob54

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I don't think there's a massive amount of value in listening to lots & lots of headphones at stock because their frequency response varies so much from one model to the next that I think it would be like finding a needle in a haystack in terms of finding one that matches your HRTF. I think there's value in trying a few respected examples from certain types of headphone though, and I think there's value in EQ and experimenting with EQ to try to find something that matches closer to your HRTF and therefore closer to what reference speakers would sound like to you.

I have 3 quite different headphones that I've based my experience on, two open backs (AKG K702 & Sennheiser HD600) and a closed back (NAD HP50), which is a pretty good selection in terms of the two open backed headphones being quite different experiences even when EQ'd to the same curve, and then you've got the contrast of a closed back headphone that has really quite low bass distortion as well as great bass extension, and I've experimented with different EQ's on all of them....and I keep coming back to the Harman Curve for all of them, yet they all offer different experiences which is the main learning point that headphones do not sound the same even when EQ'd to the same frequency response.....they have very similar tonality but differ "spatially" and have different amounts of clarity overall and sometimes different amounts of clarity in specific sections like bass or treble. AKG K702 has been the best experience so far with fantastic imaging and a speaker-like feel rather than the "in-your-head" feel of HD600, so K702 is my favourite headphone now, all EQ'd to Harman Curve like I've said. I compare the sound of my headphones to my Harman Curve Room EQ'd JBL 308p Mkii speakers, so I do have a reference to compare against if you will.

I think the main gap for me to try in future would be a planar headphone, but really I'm super happy with the K702 after my experiences I've outlined.

EDIT: and to answer your question I definitely wouldn't rule out the Sennheiser HD800S, I mean I'm not gonna try it because it's too expensive, but it doesn't deserve to be ruled out because it has a fantastic reputation amoungst some experienced people here & elsewhere and has some great qualities, plus the frequency response is relatively easily fixed because it doesn't have massive deviations (unlike the headphone in this review), here you can see it can be brought back into line quite easily:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zsp3jucy5lsty0m/Sennheiser HD800S.pdf?dl=0

I would suggest the FR "defects" of the 800 aren't too different in magnitude (or real world effect) to the LCD X. And you are right, EQ those 2 cans to the same target and you will still have a very different experience with each. Based on what I have seen here, the Hifiman Ananda might be a good planar for you to look at- well regarded and good FR- but not cheap!

EDIT- OK the LCD X whomping 3.5k dip shits all over the 800S 6k peak (and even the older HD800 fairly huge 6k peak). Barely a pimple in comparison. Im still going to stick to my guns and say you should try some EQ Audeze if you get chance.
 
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