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Audeze LCD-X Review (2021 Edition Headphone)

Rayman30

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Here is an update to my song "Big Bad World" that I mastered with the LCD-X. This time my song has been altered per @Robbo99999 's above suggestion of decreasing the energy at 1kHz. I think it sounds way better now!


Comments are most welcome!

Blessings,
-J

Quite a busy song, luckily most of us have the gear to present the image properly lol... sounds great, you should try your hand at Electro Swing, its sample heavy but has become a favorite genre of mine. Look up Caravan Palace, Chinese Man, Parov Stelar just to name a few.
 

Robbo99999

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Here is an update to my song "Big Bad World" that I mastered with the LCD-X. This time my song has been altered per @Robbo99999 's above suggestion of decreasing the energy at 1kHz. I think it sounds way better now!


Comments are most welcome!

Blessings,
-J
Yeah, I think I can notice a difference, I think the guitar riffs that come from 50 seconds onwards are better balanced into it.....they were a bit grating before and maybe too forward. That's the main thing. It is hard to critically compare these things, but that's what I've noticed....it's hard not to be psychologically swayed by what you said you changed, but I tried!
 

Jonne Haven

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I found this EQ profile to be preferable for me, I took my favorite settings from Amir, Oratory and other places. I found the mids to be a little dark on these, but this brightens it up.

Preamp: -6.0 dB
Filter 1: ON LS Fc 80 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.7
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 3700 Hz Gain 5.0 dB Q 4.5
Filter 3: ON HS Fc 1800 Hz Gain 3.5 dB Q 0.7
Filter 4: ON HS Fc 9000 Hz Gain -4.0 dB Q 0.7
Filter 5: ON LS Fc 31 Hz Gain 5.5 dB Q 1.0
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2542 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 2.5
Filter 7: ON LS Fc 127 Hz Gain 3.0 dB 0.7

If you find the above to be a little to shouty, this one is a bit more chill.

Preamp: -6.0 dB
Filter 1: ON LS Fc 80 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.7
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 3700 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 4.5
Filter 3: ON HS Fc 1800 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.7
Filter 4: ON HS Fc 9000 Hz Gain -5.0 dB Q 0.7
Filter 5: ON LS Fc 31 Hz Gain 5.5 dB Q 1.0
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2542 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 2.5
Filter 7: ON LS Fc 127 Hz Gain 2.5 dB 0.7



View attachment 198269View attachment 198270
You know you can organize the bands' order by selecting them and using the left and right arrow buttons. :)
 

Jonne Haven

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Yeah, I think I can notice a difference, I think the guitar riffs that come from 50 seconds onwards are better balanced into it.....they were a bit grating before and maybe too forward. That's the main thing. It is hard to critically compare these things, but that's what I've noticed....it's hard not to be psychologically swayed by what you said you changed, but I tried!
No, you got it right on. The electric guitars were too present in the balance and with your suggestion the "fog" in the sound has been lifted. That was precisely the intention of the remaster, so yeah, you got it right.

-J
 

Jonne Haven

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Quite a busy song, luckily most of us have the gear to present the image properly lol... sounds great, you should try your hand at Electro Swing, its sample heavy but has become a favorite genre of mine. Look up Caravan Palace, Chinese Man, Parov Stelar just to name a few.
Yeah, it's a busy track and I'll be honest, it doesn't sound so great on cheaper headphones like the DT770s. Things tend to sound crunched together on those HPs. So I guess this track is dependent on good equipment, but I'm ok with that.

I'll definitely have to check out Electro Swing. I've never heard of that genre but I'm always looking for new material!

Thanks!
-J
 

staticV3

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Afaik Audeze does frequency response measurements for every one of their headphones using a Neumann KU 100 and they'll share those if you ask nicely.

You could even try to calibrate that to Harman using oratory's review sample of an LCD-3, which was measured both on his KEMAR and on Audeze's Neumann. See here
 

Phoney

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staticV3

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Oh nice! Though who knows if the LCD-2's frequency response has remained the same over the last two years...
 

Phoney

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Oh nice! Though who knows if the LCD-2's frequency response has remained the same over the last two years...
It's very confusing with Audeze indeed haha.. The new LCD-2C should be quite different from the old one, due to a fix in the low treble. Partly due to the new pads I believe, but I also saw someone claiming that they updated the drivers too? Yet they are named exactly the same and they silently updated it. I've never had this much problem trying to find information about headphones, due to the hard time figuring out which version the information is linked to. It actually seems like the most recent version of LCD-2 Rosewood and LCD-2 Classic have pretty much the same frequency response, atleast according to Crinacles graphs (if the 2020 version of Rosewood is indeed the most recent one).
 
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Robbo99999

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Afaik Audeze does frequency response measurements for every one of their headphones using a Neumann KU 100 and they'll share those if you ask nicely.

You could even try to calibrate that to Harman using oratory's review sample of an LCD-3, which was measured both on his KEMAR and on Audeze's Neumann. See here
Had a quick skim of that thread, that was just the same model of headphone measured on both rigs right, or it was actually the very same unit that was measured on both? I think it would be a good conversion curve if it was the very same unit that was measured on both as you're removing the variable of unit to unit variation.
 

deafenears

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Would be handy to have some kind of compensation/conversion curve to use as there's plenty of Audeze KU100 measurements out there.
 

Robbo99999

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very same unit (serial number 2821432)
Nice, that should work well, I developed my own in a somewhat similar way for K702 - my unit measured by Oratory and same unit measured on my miniDSP EARS - it worked very well applying that to another K702 that wasn't measured by Oratory after measuring that on miniDSP EARS / applying the conversion curve / & then EQ'ing to the Harman Curve - pretty much the best headphone experience I've had (probably also because that particular K702 happened to be the best "clean slate" K702 I've got re channel matching / frequency response generally / treble above 10kHz / and distortion.

EDIT: but it will also come down to how precisely Audeze characterises each unit on their measurement rig - their measurement procedure. If they don't have a solid & repeatable procedure for obtaining their "published" measurement for each unit then that will be another element of unpredictability within the conversion process.
 
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Phoney

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Actually it seems like the 2C drivers were never updated, so maybe just the pad change actually fixed some of the huge treble dip.
 

Phoney

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Oh nice! Though who knows if the LCD-2's frequency response has remained the same over the last two years...
Well, apparently all the pad changes happened in 2021, so I'm still short of FR measurements with the new pads installed. These could severly impact the FR, and I'm not great at equalizing without measurements tbh. Could allways give it a try for the sake of learning, but I'd prefer seeing some measurements.

Update:
9214d6332167b1fea6073a7172904a99.png
 
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solderdude

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old vs 2021 LCD-X

LCDX.gif
 
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Bernard23

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I've been undecided between these and Arya for some time now. I'm a big fan of Sundara, though temper that with Grado Hemp! In the end I made an impulse decision on one subjective reviewer that claimed that Arya was good for classical, jazz and acoustic, whereas the LCD-X was better for rock, EDM etc. Might as well throw a dice, but 2 hours in and I'm sold! I'm using a slightly modified version of Oratory1990 PEQ settings (less bass, and a bit more treble lift for my 56 yr old ears) and I can only describe the upgrade as comparing looking through a large windo of clear glass rather than through a slightly misty hazy porthole. Same spectacular detail, but more wow. As ever, is that worth spending £££ or $$$ on? I'm keeping them, and the Sundara and Hemp are going to sent to new parents, as I have no need of them now.
Right, more importantly, where is that bottle of '82 Chateau Talbot I had hidden away.....
 

iamsms

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Question for @solderdude and others - in this headphone's case impedance looks like resistive (frequency independent). What about sensitivity? Can that be frequency dependent? Not just for this headphone but others as well (say HD800s which has frequency dependent impedance - looks like inductive to me)?

I am asking because say I want to figure out power requirement for my headphone for every frequency at a certain SPL.
 
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