My Objective/Subjective Comparison of Three Popular High-End Headphones plus a Newcomer

[Martin]

Great photos, Martin. And they show perfectly why your earcup cracked.

You can see the steel plate of the driver is securely screw fastened into the wood frame at four points. The four phillips head screws appear securely nestled into dimples in the steel frame. The steel frame holes appear neither oversized nor slotted - nor are they surrounded by an o-ring or other compliant material - any one of which would have allowed for some wood movement without cracking. As it is, the steel plate and four fixed non-compliant screws totally prevent any wood expansion or contraction. It also appears there may be zero clearance between the outer circumference of the steel plate, and the inner one of the wood frame. Both are perfect recipes for cracks due to wood hygroscopic expansion and contraction.

The good news is - driver tonality should not be effected. The steel plate is not going to expand or contract because of humidity. Driver characteristics should remain unchanged.

No woodworkers at Audeze, unfortunately..

And do you remember where the crack appeared? Between either the top two, or bottom two screws on the left cup? Or the horizontal two screws on the right?

Finally, your $350 repair..IMO you should have paid for the pad replacement, you should not have been expected to pay for replacing the cracked earcup. It cracked clearly because of design defect.

This was the crack on mine before they were repaired:

Martin

 

[dlieb]

Thanks for these reviews. They are great.

 

[Martin]

Oratory based rankings say you should prefer them this way:
1. LCD3
2. Clear
3. closely followed by Arya
4. Heddphone

1. Clear
2. LCD3
3. Arya
4. Heddphone

In both cases the 'computer generated' ratings both with and without EQ seem to have poor relation to your preference.

I have often been asked how I rate this or that headphone and why there is no preference rating on my website.
This is a perfect demonstration of why I don't rank headphones.... it is personal.

Thanks for the elaborate comparison.

I really love your one word descriptors !
Arya: Polite (is how I would describe the Edition X but that one is 'coarser' than arya)
Clear: Clear (how I described them too)
LCD3: Powerfull (LCD2F too, LCD4 differs)
Heddphone: Special (although that can have a wide meaning)

I used to think that frequency response and the associated preference score was the end all be all of headphone measurements. This experience has taught me that headphones, much like speakers, are a very personal choice. After all, they are the only thing in the chain actually producing sound.

I struggled with Special - I mean it in an exemplary manner, not in the way its been used to describe something needing assistance. They are somewhat indescribable and have to be heard to understand.

Martin

 

[Martin]

Question for you. If we class everything here as "upper mid tier" or whatever you want to bracket them as, do you have much experience of the lower tiers price wise? $200 ish, sub $500 ish etc. And would you equate price to performance after EQ?

I do not. My first pair of headphones were Sennheiser HD598 which I replaced with Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pros. I then jumped up to the Audeze LCD-3 and the rest of this group.

I wonder if I’d undertaken this journey if I’d discovered oratory1990’s Reddit sooner.

Martin

 

[TheSacredSoul]

Thanks for the write up!

Did the EQ you use was from oratory as well?

 

[solderdude]

I used oratory1990’s Harman target parametric EQ settings.

Martin

 

[dlieb]

I do not. My first pair of headphones were Sennheiser HD598 which I replaced with Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pros. I then jumped up to the Audeze LCD-3 and the rest of this group.

I wonder if I’d undertaken this journey if I’d discovered oratory1990’s Reddit sooner.

Martin

Did you ever systematically compare the DT 1990 Pros to the rest of the group?

 

[Martin]

Did you ever systematically compare the DT 1990 Pros to the rest of the group?

I sold them when I purchased the Audeze LCD-3. IMMHO I can tell you from memory there was no comparison to the LCD-3 or any of the others in this group. The DT 1990 Pros were nice, much better than the anemic HD598, but nothing like these. My 2¢ / YMMV / etc.

Martin

 

[dlieb]

Thanks for the response. Did you EQ the 1990 Pros?

 

[Martin]

Thanks for the response. Did you EQ the 1990 Pros?

I used Dakoni Elite Velour pads and @solderdude's passive headphone filter to smooth the response and knock down the Beyer treble peak. I had yet to discover active headphone EQ.

Martin

 

[dlieb]

I used Dakoni Elite Velour pads and @solderdude's passive headphone filter to smooth the response and knock down the Beyer treble peak. I had yet to discover active headphone EQ.

Martin

Got it!

BTW, thanks again for all of the impressions. In general I'm deeply skeptical of subjective reviews for reasons familiar to just about everybody a ASR, but your reviews seem to me a rare case in which they genuinely add value. Nice job!

 

[OverDrive]

Teaser:
View attachment 99275
$6,933 (retail) worth of headphones...

The Aryas are rev. 1 or 2?

 

[Martin]

The Aryas are rev. 1 or 2?

They have already been returned but were purchased directly from HIFIMAN on November 26, 2020.

Martin

 

[nhatlam96]

Thanks for the review @Martin
I also searched for my personal endgame.
I live in Germany and compared the prices:

German prices in €: (new / used)
LCD3: (2000 / 1500)
Arya or Heddphone: (1500 / 1000)
Clear (+pro) : (1000 / 850)

In the end I bought:
Focal Clear professional: 900€ new (special sale). My reasons for buying were mostly due to weight and price. Tonality-/Technicality wise, I would have been fine with all of them.

 

[KenG]

Hi Martin, great review!
I also own an LCD3 and your description matches my thoughts on it. When I originally demoed the LCD3 in-store it was off of a SPL Phonitor X which really made that combination sound special. The instrument separation & imaging was magnificent.
As mentioned I purchased the LCD3 but not the Phonitor (which you own). I currently run the LCD3 (and other headphones) off of a Schiit Bifrost 2/Jot2 stack which sounds good but curious to what I might be missing with the SPL

Did you do this review with the SPL? How did the SPL Phonitor/LCD3 pairing match up with any other headphone amp (+LCD3) you might use?