Audeze LCD-X Review (2021 Edition Headphone)

[pk500]

I have experimented a lot with different base curves and tweaking them, which was a lot of rabbit tunnels, that all popped out into concluding that for me, the Roon/Audeze LCD-X profile was just fine for me!

Yep. It's very, very good. I found a convolution filter based on Jaakko's AutoEQ profiles that suits me perfectly, but the built-in Audeze preset in Roon also is lovely for my LCD-X 2021. Both the Audeze house preset and Jaakko's convolution filter sound very similar.

 

[jae]

LCD-X 2021 EQ Revision 03-05-23
For A Refined EQ

I'm proud to present nearly 3 months work in what is arguably my best EQ for LCD-X ever!

It's been a while since my last revision (which to me, I admit, I was a little disappointed with) so I spent extra time with this one to make sure that I was not going to regret posting it. Always sleeping on any change, large or small, to hear it again with fresh ears before committing to anything.

This time around I discovered that PEACE can define Q values to the thousandth of a decimal place, a feature that I took advantage of in this release to amazing results...especially when shaping high frequency sounds like 'sss' sounds. In this revision I have shaped the 'sss' sounds to near perfection...not fuzzy sounding but not piercing either...just realistic and beautiful.

View attachment 270130

Highs have been shaped in a hybrid shape with the the LCD-X's stock tuning and the Focal Stellia's stock tuning...using the best of both tunings and combining them for custom euphonic sound. It took a long to time to accomplish this.

The sub bass extends all the way down and below 20Hz for beautiful sub bass but not too much...as defined by a dip at exactly 40.11Hz for just enough sub bass but not too much to add mud. Since my last revision I've added back some of the high bass warmth that was missing, getting back to my roots so to speak...but again not too much.
If a song is meant to be bass heavy, this EQ will reflect that. If the song is not bass heavy, this EQ will respect that as well. Also the way bass is expressed in modern pop is often times different than the way that bass was mastered in songs from the 90s, 80s, and 70s and so on respectively. All will sound good/appropriate to their respective time periods. The common attribute for all of these bass expressions is a nice amount of punch.


Important notes about P.E.A.C.E.
My EQs go to the the hundredth place of some Frequencies values as well as the hundredth place of some Gain values. Unfortunately the Import function of the current PEACE v. 1.6.4.1 does not import these decimal place values as they are in the txt files I've shared...as I have posted earlier.

I wrote to PEACE creator Peter Verbeek and he has fixed this issue in beta version 1.6.5.0 just for this fix! And he did it within 24 hours of my writing him!
This beta version is available at this link: PEACE Beta V. 1.6.5.0

Instructions:
1. Rename the downloaded exe file from Peace1650.exe to Peace.exe.
2. Copy the downloaded and renamed file to c:\program files\equalizerapo\config, overwriting the existing Peace.exe file (perhaps after renaming the existing Peace.exe file to Peace.bak just in case for safety.
3. In case you haven't already done this, change the Settings/Sizes And Amounts Settings - "Snap to dB gain" setting to 0.01 as in the following pic.

View attachment 270131

Now you can simply import the attached txt file and trust that all of the decimal place values will be accurate so you hear exactly what I hear and have worked so hard on!

LCD-X 2021 EQ Revision 03-05-23
Channel: all
Preamp: -17.7 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 20.2 Hz Gain 11.89 dB Q 0.68
Filter 2: ON LSC Fc 40.11 Hz Gain 1.07 dB Q 4
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 80 Hz Gain 9.47 dB Q 1.196
Filter 4: ON LSC Fc 90 Hz Gain 3.79 dB Q 0.65
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 120 Hz Gain 1.99 dB Q 1.41
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 220 Hz Gain -4.13 dB Q 2.4
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 300 Hz Gain 3.45 dB Q 1.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 575 Hz Gain 3.72 dB Q 3
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 785 Hz Gain -2.34 dB Q 2.2
Filter 10: ON HSC Fc 1235 Hz Gain -1 dB Q 2.4
Filter 11: ON HSC Fc 1500 Hz Gain 8 dB Q 0.72
Filter 12: ON PK Fc 1750 Hz Gain 0.47 dB Q 3
Filter 13: ON PK Fc 1910 Hz Gain 1.05 dB Q 5
Filter 14: ON PK Fc 2700 Hz Gain -3.1 dB Q 2
Filter 15: ON PK Fc 3325 Hz Gain 0.3 dB Q 4.8
Filter 16: ON PK Fc 3485 Hz Gain 1.6 dB Q 4.9
Filter 17: ON PK Fc 3750 Hz Gain 3.3 dB Q 1.7
Filter 18: ON PK Fc 3850 Hz Gain 1.1 dB Q 4.7
Filter 19: ON PK Fc 4015 Hz Gain -1.15 dB Q 5
Filter 20: ON PK Fc 4350 Hz Gain 2.3 dB Q 4
Filter 21: ON PK Fc 5100 Hz Gain -0.45 dB Q 3
Filter 22: ON PK Fc 5600 Hz Gain -2.75 dB Q 5
Filter 23: ON PK Fc 6100 Hz Gain -3.23 dB Q 2.5
Filter 24: ON PK Fc 6500 Hz Gain 2.12 dB Q 5
Filter 25: ON PK Fc 7200 Hz Gain -1.65 dB Q 3
Filter 26: ON PK Fc 8000 Hz Gain -1.46 dB Q 4.073
Filter 27: ON PK Fc 9700 Hz Gain -0.3 dB Q 1.41
Filter 28: ON HSC Fc 10980 Hz Gain 2.14 dB Q 0.65
Filter 29: ON PK Fc 11115.84 Hz Gain -2.4 dB Q 3.921
Filter 30: ON PK Fc 13290 Hz Gain -4.99 dB Q 4.8
Filter 31: ON PK Fc 13737 Hz Gain 3.25 dB Q 3.082

As with all of my EQs I have designed them for easy tweaking:

- To tailor bass adjust the gain of Filter 4 to taste.
- To tailor mids "shoutiness" adjust the gain of Filter 17 to taste. Or to tailor the entire mids and high-bass raise (or lower) the Gain of the other named filters (Filters 4, 27, and 28) EQUALLY and adjust the Pre-amp value to keep the EQ at -0.1dB. This is the preferred way to adjust the mids.
- To tailor high-mids/low treble adjust the gain of Filter 27 to taste.
- To tailor treble adjust the gain of Filter 28 to taste.

After any adjustment, be sure that the Pre-amp setting is set to keep the EQ at -0.1dB in the graph window to avoid clipping or unnecessary compression.

Thanks for reading this far! And thanks to you all who have been so kind in encouraging me with "Likes" and posts. For those of you who don't EQ (I respect that), thanks for putting up with my posts for the sake of those who do.

Enjoy what I think is my best EQ ever and do let me know if you have questions/comments!

Blessings,
-Jonne

I don't see any psychoacoustic benefit to using such high precision for the filter bandwidth ratios, no human being is really going to be able to discern differences at these magnitudes. The first 20-odd or more filters could probably be optimised to 10 or less and still sound 99% identical, even with only single decimal precision for both gain and Q.

 

[Bernard23]

Have you compared the Roon EQ to Oratory's ? I use a tweaked version of Oratory's. The LCD-X are very very good, but sometimes I get the sense they are missing upper midrange presence, and have been able to add some EQ to help, although nothing I do seems to fully restore it.

Aurally yes, but not electronically. The Audeze profiles don't show the filter details. I tried oratory, jaako (jakko?) and multiple tweaks of each. Not even sure whether to use cross feed or not, let alone which version! I think I prefer it on and set to Bauer.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

That single screw look like it's prime for loosening. Anybody have any issues with that?
View attachment 143670

Yes, well spotted.
I have the XC version, with same headband. Mine came loose, and I lost the screw.
I had to get a stainless steel pair from China! (obscure 4-40 US size), and this rime I used a bigger head screw, did away with locking washer (looks awful on a £1300 headphone), but used a bit of thread lock this time, hasn't come loose again, and I think it even looks better.
In fairness, Audeze did offer to send me a replacement, but I declined, just asked them what size it was!

 

[AlfieFroud]

I really like the Audeze preset in Roon. Anyone know of a way I can use the preset with Apple Music?

 

[staticV3]

Anyone know of a way I can use the preset with Apple Music?

 

[AlfieFroud]

Thank you. Is there a way to EQ them with my RME ADI-2 DAC FS so it sounds like the Reveal plugin?

 

[staticV3]

Thank you. Is there a way to EQ them with my RME ADI-2 DAC FS so it sounds like the Reveal plugin?

As long as Reveal only corrects frequency response, you could measure the filter response, then rebuild it as an ADI-2 Parametric EQ in REW or AutoEQ.

If instead Reveal also adds reverb to simulate a mastering audio, then I don't think you can emulate that with your ADI-2.

 

[AlfieFroud]

As long as Reveal only corrects frequency response, you could measure the filter response, then rebuild it as an ADI-2 Parametric EQ in REW or AutoEQ.

If instead Reveal also adds reverb to simulate a mastering audio, then I don't think you can emulate that with your ADI-2.

Is it easy to measure the filter response?

 

[staticV3]

Is it easy to measure the filter response?

It is on Windows (you can skip the first 50s):

 

[AlfieFroud]

It is on Windows (you can skip the first 50s):

That does look somewhat easy. Knowing me though I’ll manage to mess it up somehow. I might see if I can pay someone to do it for me lol

 

[staticV3]

That does look somewhat easy. Knowing me though I’ll manage to mess it up somehow. I might see if I can pay someone to do it for me lol

I can give you a step by step if you'd like

 

[Jonne Haven]

@Jonne Haven this may work well for your specific unit, ears and taste but this level of precision in an EQ puts too much stock in the reliability of measurements. It is misguided for anything general, and particularly for Audeze which have significant unit variance. I usually start with Oratory1990's Harman presets and found I had to change his LCD-X one quite a bit more than I have for other headphones to get it sounding right. I'm just not sure it makes sense to get this into the weeds with thousandths of a decimal place for very high frequency Q values. The usual approach for general EQs is the exact opposite, just a broad high shelf for the high frequencies.

For me this is not to my taste, it's much too boomy and recesses the mids making them sound muffled. You are doing some things along the same lines as I would like boosting the upper mids to Harman. But the very large bass boost pushes everything down, relatively.

@Blorg,

You are right in that I cannot expect my EQ to sound the same on others LCD-X's particularly because of Audeze's infamous unit variation. In that I agree with you. But I'd rather share, then not share and possibly deprive just one person of some added listening pleasure or the opportunity to tweak my settings for some added listening pleasure, know what I mean?

In terms of my stock in measurements, my aim is simply to have a starting place and I these are the best I could find...I'd rather put my stock in something rather than nothing and I have developed trust and respect for Oratory's measurements...also I DO use my ears and adjust accordingly after having graphed my EQ to measurements.

I know that the general EQ approach to highs is just a broad shelf. It is how I approached many of my past EQs. I only did what I did to accomplish a hybrid between the Focal Stellia stock FR and the LCD-X. If you were to look at the FR of the Stellia and the stock FR of the LCD-X you'd find them to be even spikier than my resulting FR. I have to be clear that I'm referring to end Frequency Response and not the EQ graph (pre compensated). Maybe my approach is misguided, but I like the sound personally and I'm only sharing what I've done to possible help another enjoy the sound I've found...not to force a reinvention on EQ approach. I respect the traditions in place, but I believe that even traditions must be tested and experimented with...I'm certainly not saying you're SUPPOSED to do it my way by all means.

I have heard AND listened to your opinion that my mids are too muffled. At first I took this personally, but I am attempting to, and have been for nearly a month, on making an EQ that brings the mids more forward, and so far, though not finished, I am liking what I am hearing better. There is simply "more music" in my EQ now! I have decreased the bass shelf by 2.19 decibels. I am adjusting everything else to suit including abandoning the exact Harman curve because I find it too shouty when brought up by that decibel level (which is why I pushed it down in the first place), though I'm still using it as a general reference. So thank you for your opinion, though I took it personally at first and was hurt by the criticism which took me days to get over (I am a sensitive person by nature) but I wised up and it turned out that I agree with you in the end and I look forward to you hearing my newer adjusted EQ for if you give me another chance, you may find them more to your liking.

Thanks and Blessings,
Respectfully,
-Jonne

 

[Jonne Haven]

Hi Jonne, this EQ may sound great to you, but there's no guarantee it will sound great to everyone else, so when you say "Now you can simply import the attached txt file and trust that all of the decimal place values will be accurate so you hear exactly what I hear and have worked so hard on!" - this is just not the case, virtually noone will hear it exactly as you hear it due to HRTF differences between people, unit to unit variation of headphones, and some variability of frequency response in relation to specific anatomy differences that can effect seal and also frequency response effects independent of seal - headphones just aren't reliable enough between different people to ensure that they will hear what you hear with any given EQ.

You also mention your EQ takes advantage of you finding out that Q values and frequencies can be stipulated to the hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place, and again based on what we've talked about in my first paragraph, then these very minute differences are lost in the inaccuracies associated with different people's experiences of headphones in terms of the actual frequency response they receive (for a start). Also those very minute differences that you mention re hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place, I'd be super surprised if anyone can tell the difference between their own EQ's that operate to that level of detailed spec - this would be placebo on your end rather than an actual difference you're experiencing - certainly accuracy to hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place is not perceivable in EQ's for any of the variables.

I'm just saying all this to put it into perspective, I'm not saying that your EQ is wrong for you, it's quite possibly a good EQ for yourself and your particular unit of LCD-X, but you can't assume it'll be good for everyone else, and I'm quite sure you've led yourself down the garden path of placebo when you start talking about hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place in your EQ's. But for sure be happy in the enjoyment of your EQ, that cannot be taken away from your experience.

@Robbo99999,

You are right, I shouldn't have phrased what I said the way I did "so you can hear exactly what I hear". That statement was misleading if taken literally. I am aware that Audeze's infamous unit variation makes it virtually impossible to represent exactly an EQ from one unit to the next. I guess what I meant to say was that I had taken great pains in creating the EQ and the new Beta version of PEACE that Peter made for the decimal place fix addressed the ignoring of my exact values.

As for my experiences with high decimal places being placebo, I don't know how to respond to that. I suppose only I can know what I hear and I'm hearing that these extreme decimal places are often compounded based on circumstance and do make a difference to me on the extremely sensitive LCD-X. Do you own and EQ an LCD-X 2021? They are engineering headphones and are incredibly responsive to DSP effects by design. Maybe my efforts are lost on unit variation and other peoples HRTF differences but I'd rather make the efforts than not just in case they do make a difference to one person, or allow one person to make some tweaks and enjoy a better sound.

I would not desire to make no effort and make no posts out of a feeling of pre-determined self defeated worthlessness. I offer an option to headphone enthusiasts, perhaps a starting place, if not just a general enthusiasm for the betterment of sound quality that I hope would be infectious. I would not wish to deflate my high hopes that maybe I could help someone find better sound quality even if it means a lot of people don't like what I post.

I'm sorry if I sound defensive. I know you are just expressing your thoughts as you have every right and I know that by nature I'm a sensitive person so please do not take my response to be in any way impugning your post. I don't wish to convey any disrespect, in fact the opposite. I have come to respect you and your posts and suggestions very much over the many months we've been communing. Again, I put a lot of myself in my EQs and am just by nature a sensitive person, that's all.

I am making an new LCD-X EQ that addresses some people's comments that my EQ was too mid frequency withdrawn. I will post it here when I'm finished even if it is negatively received because maybe just one person will enjoy it.

Blessings,
Respectfully,
-Jonne

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Hi Jonne, this EQ may sound great to you, but there's no guarantee it will sound great to everyone else, so when you say "Now you can simply import the attached txt file and trust that all of the decimal place values will be accurate so you hear exactly what I hear and have worked so hard on!" - this is just not the case, virtually noone will hear it exactly as you hear it due to HRTF differences between people, unit to unit variation of headphones, and some variability of frequency response in relation to specific anatomy differences that can effect seal and also frequency response effects independent of seal - headphones just aren't reliable enough between different people to ensure that they will hear what you hear with any given EQ.

You also mention your EQ takes advantage of you finding out that Q values and frequencies can be stipulated to the hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place, and again based on what we've talked about in my first paragraph, then these very minute differences are lost in the inaccuracies associated with different people's experiences of headphones in terms of the actual frequency response they receive (for a start). Also those very minute differences that you mention re hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place, I'd be super surprised if anyone can tell the difference between their own EQ's that operate to that level of detailed spec - this would be placebo on your end rather than an actual difference you're experiencing - certainly accuracy to hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place is not perceivable in EQ's for any of the variables.

I'm just saying all this to put it into perspective, I'm not saying that your EQ is wrong for you, it's quite possibly a good EQ for yourself and your particular unit of LCD-X, but you can't assume it'll be good for everyone else, and I'm quite sure you've led yourself down the garden path of placebo when you start talking about hundredths and thousandths in terms of decimal place in your EQ's. But for sure be happy in the enjoyment of your EQ, that cannot be taken away from your experience.

Never mind all of that,
-18dB preamp?
When is enough is enough?

 

[Robbo99999]

I just gave that a like for the girl with the tatoos and the smiles, I'm fickle, but what can you do!

 

[Robbo99999]

@Robbo99999,

You are right, I shouldn't have phrased what I said the way I did "so you can hear exactly what I hear". That statement was misleading if taken literally. I am aware that Audeze's infamous unit variation makes it virtually impossible to represent exactly an EQ from one unit to the next. I guess what I meant to say was that I had taken great pains in creating the EQ and the new Beta version of PEACE that Peter made for the decimal place fix addressed the ignoring of my exact values.

As for my experiences with high decimal places being placebo, I don't know how to respond to that. I suppose only I can know what I hear and I'm hearing that these extreme decimal places are often compounded based on circumstance and do make a difference to me on the extremely sensitive LCD-X. Do you own and EQ an LCD-X 2021? They are engineering headphones and are incredibly responsive to DSP effects by design. Maybe my efforts are lost on unit variation and other peoples HRTF differences but I'd rather make the efforts than not just in case they do make a difference to one person, or allow one person to make some tweaks and enjoy a better sound.

I would not desire to make no effort and make no posts out of a feeling of pre-determined self defeated worthlessness. I offer an option to headphone enthusiasts, perhaps a starting place, if not just a general enthusiasm for the betterment of sound quality that I hope would be infectious. I would not wish to deflate my high hopes that maybe I could help someone find better sound quality even if it means a lot of people don't like what I post.

I'm sorry if I sound defensive. I know you are just expressing your thoughts as you have every right and I know that by nature I'm a sensitive person so please do not take my response to be in any way impugning your post. I don't wish to convey any disrespect, in fact the opposite. I have come to respect you and your posts and suggestions very much over the many months we've been communing. Again, I put a lot of myself in my EQs and am just by nature a sensitive person, that's all.

I am making an new LCD-X EQ that addresses some people's comments that my EQ was too mid frequency withdrawn. I will post it here when I'm finished even if it is negatively received because maybe just one person will enjoy it.

Blessings,
Respectfully,
-Jonne

Hi Jonne, your personalised EQ is yours, it's your's, it's not anyone else's. So enjoy that. I can't get around the extreme decimal place joy that you have found, that really can't be anything more than placebo, but that doesn't mean your EQ is worthless to yourself - of course if you changed one dB value by 0.01 or one Q value by 0.01 allowed by any recent changes by your updated software that wouldn't make a perceivable difference. I know you like to feel the music, and you're creating it, I quite like some of the youtube stuff you've put up, but the ultra fine 0.01 effects you're talking about in terms of dB or Q are not gonna be perceivable, that's really just your imagination. I know you're concentrated on that stuff. If I was gonna say anything, I'd say take your creative juices and turn that into making music, not headphone EQ's. Instead get some pretty cheap JBL 308p monitors or 305p monitors (for example) and EQ them based on the Anechoic measurements here on ASR and then create your mixes on that, and then praps combine them with checking them on a headphone that can play down to 20Hz if you're not gonna get a subwoofer with your speakers.....and to be honest I have a subwoofer that can play down to 20Hz and I'd take a headphone that plays accurately down to 20Hz every day of the week to check the bass was ok and had the right detail. But do me a favour, just don't get fixated on decimal points in terms of your recent software revelations you've been talking about. Keep going though, just steer away from the headphone EQ's.

 

[IAtaman]

As for my experiences with high decimal places being placebo, I don't know how to respond to that. I suppose only I can know what I hear and I'm hearing that these extreme decimal places are often compounded based on circumstance and do make a difference to me on the extremely sensitive LCD-X.

You can respond to that in the same way you'd respond if I told you that 24.1°C was too hot for me but 24.0°C felt perfect when I am wearing my super sensitive t-shirt.

 

[Ken Tajalli]

Hi Jonne, your personalised EQ is yours, it's your's, it's not anyone else's. So enjoy that. I can't get around the extreme decimal place joy that you have found, that really can't be anything more than placebo, but that doesn't mean your EQ is worthless to yourself - of course if you changed one dB value by 0.01 or one Q value by 0.01 allowed by any recent changes by your updated software that wouldn't make a perceivable difference. I know you like to feel the music, and you're creating it, I quite like some of the youtube stuff you've put up, but the ultra fine 0.01 effects you're talking about in terms of dB or Q are not gonna be perceivable, that's really just your imagination. I know you're concentrated on that stuff. If I was gonna say anything, I'd say take your creative juices and turn that into making music, not headphone EQ's. Instead get some pretty cheap JBL 308p monitors or 305p monitors (for example) and EQ them based on the Anechoic measurements here on ASR and then create your mixes on that, and then praps combine them with checking them on a headphone that can play down to 20Hz if you're not gonna get a subwoofer with your speakers.....and to be honest I have a subwoofer that can play down to 20Hz and I'd take a headphone that plays accurately down to 20Hz every day of the week to check the bass was ok and had the right detail. But do me a favour, just don't get fixated on decimal points in terms of your recent software revelations you've been talking about. Keep going though, just steer away from the headphone EQ's.

On the notion of "level matching" , let me say this:
- when I try to come up an EQ profile for any headphone, sometimes I could discern 0.5dB changes or small frequency adjustments made to the profile. But I knew, my ears would get tired very quickly doing that.
And one day, while listening to my favourite headphones and patting myself on the back for the effectiveness of my EQ profile, only to realize after half an hour, that I hadn't even engaged the EQ at all!
So then I set up a system to monitor the EQ profile in a level matched manner, based on midrange level matching, not just a simple preamp cut.
To my surprise, even EQs of +/-3dB, were difficult to spot!
I was under the impression that my ears were good enough down to 0.5dB. Unless it is an extreme EQ, such as +3db at 1000Hz and -3dB at 2000Hz, then I could easily.
But an HF shelf of -2dB at 8kHz ? I could miss that, if the level of the unequalized is dropped by 1dB or so.
What happens, is that I can detect the -2dB shelf only if levels were not matched.
Indeed, I was only detecting the level change, not the EQ itself.

 

[AlfieFroud]

I can give you a step by step if you'd like

Sorry for such a late reply, but yes please. I would greatly appreciate that!