LTS V1 Modular Headphone Impressions

LTA Project Thread
LTS V3 Thread
LTS V1 Product Page
LTS Shop
Elleven Acoustica Product Page
Elleven Acoustica Ypsilon P1 Review


TL-DR
A platform to realise the sound potential of your 46mm drivers
Incredible build quality
Lightweight




I haven’t seen any reviews of this headphone online, so wanted to put down a few words.

First, I should say that the complexity can be very daunting when you read about LTS. @Tomislav_L started an LTA project with several headphone designs, and it’s possible to make your own, buy DIY kits from him and assemble them yourself, buy complete assembled headphones or have customized versions made. And then there’s a choice of materials, mostly between 3d printed plastics or CNC’ed aluminium for selected parts.

The V1 is described as For Uncompromising Connoisseurs of Vocal & Instrumental Music The model I have include CNC'ed aluminium cups / headband sliders and Elleven Acoustica's German-made "Ypisilon P1" drivers.


Sound

The LTS design aims to let the drivers shine, and to be as transparent as possible. In Tomislav's words The core design philosophy behind the V1 model has been to make the passive parts as inert and rigid as possible. LTS favors inert materials rather than the coloration from using wood or other resonant materials that are often used in other Grado-style designs.

Out of the package my pair sounded odd, and I was disappointed. This was my first encounter with drivers that require serious burn-in - after 12-24 hours the sound was transformed for the better.

Audio Acoustica’s P1’s are described by Tomislav as objectively some of the best dynamic drivers available for headphones at any price and lead to the type of sound signature planned for the V1 from the start, namely a highly detailed, highly resolving, transparent, flat sound which extracts as much information from music as possible and presents it in the most honest way possible. Audio Acoustica describes them as an Upgrade for Joseph Grado HP1000 and the best midrange you're ever gonna get from a Grado build. For an independent view, see this in-depth review.

Relative to other headphones, the achieved resolution is a step up from a HD6xx and much closer to Focal Clears. Grado-style headphones have a reputation for treble peaks and bass rolloff, but I find them neutral - similar to the Clears and with similar bass extension down to 40hz.


Source: https://www.crowdsupply.com/tomislav-liber/lta-headphones

There is one noticeable characteristic of the headphones that is probably not from the drivers: instruments feel very precisely located. That’s quite different from the loose sense of space I hear with a HD6xx, or the ‘halo effect’ from a Focal Clear. What’s odd is the location is always on a line segment from one ear through the head and to the other ear. I think of that as accurate representation of a stereo recording, rather than the analog-enriched experience of Focal designs.

The imaging precision is a mixed bag. While it’s great for many recordings, it can actually be quite unpleasant to listen to tracks like Let Go / Girls from the Internet and hear / feel that a pounding is happening inside your head. What works spectacularly well with the LTS V1s are binaural recordings. For example, listening to Macy Grey's "The Heart", it seemed that she was swaying or moving around - something I've never noticed from that recording with any other headphones. It led me to track down video of a live performance, which verifies Macy doesn't keep still. For conventional recordings, digital binaural software can add a sense of space -- I used the Sennheiser / DearReality VR plug-in via Audirvana.



Build Quality

If you’ve read the LTS V3 thread, you’ll know how wowed others are by the build quality.

Additive manufacturing aka 3D printing has a mixed reputation, often being used for making rough-looking homebrew / prototype devices. LTS uses AM/3DP, but of a professional grade and with extensive post-processing. The resulting plastic parts are as polished as injected molded ones, but feel more solid and rigid. The CNC aluminium finish is similar to what you’ll see in a Macbook.

I would go so far as to say LTS may be the best made headphones you can buy. They remind me of prestige Swiss watches and jewellery… you can spend an hour looking at the detail and craftsmanship of them, and find no fault.




Design

Design is good but not at the same tier as build quality. They’re very functional, but they’re not gorgeous. They have a simple, minimalistic styling. They have a great feeling stepped slider mechanism, and pivot mechanism for the cups.

Perhaps a fair comparison are Abyss headphones - LTS are as well built and much better looking. Compared to the Focal Clears, these are less well designed but better built - no painted plastic to chip, and better quality connectors.

If design matters greatly to you, Tomaslav seems to have hit on a jaw-droppingly gorgeous design with the LTS V3.

The cable is very heavy compared to the light build of the V1s, and I don’t feel it’s a great match. I’m replacing the cable with a shorter, lighter one.

If you're interested in how the design provides modularity and potential to tune the sound, this writeup has all you would like to know.


Comfort

The weight of these headphones is very appealing, These are made from lightweight and rigid materials. I find the substantial weight of the Focal Clears limits the time that they can be used. LTS V1s are better for extended listening.

I don’t have a lot of personal experience with the comfort of Grado-style headphones - but they’re not comfortable by reputation. The pads were quite unpleasant and scratchy when new, and have become more comfortable over time. I’ve ordered a bunch of other styles to try.


Openness of Design

I bought into these because of the free and open aspect - I’m still excited about the idea, but a little disappointed with the execution. Tomislav makes the Autocad Inventor files available on his website. The files I’ve downloaded show LTA-branded prototype versions and I’m not sure how different they are from the LTS production version. The website indicates LTS have improved design over LTA. The software to open the files, Autocad Inventor, is expensive, complex and is not being developed further. It was time consuming to extract and convert content so I could use it.

I've explored two tweaks so far using the design files:

* Mounts for Symphonies V9 or Nhoord Red drivers. These are well regarded grado-style drivers.

* Replacing the plastic grills with metal ones, maybe silver or rhodium-plated brass. The thick design file (suited for plastic?) makes these cost prohibitive, but I hope to thin out the design for metal.




I would prefer if LTS made parts available on a Shapeways Shop (or similar) so they are ready to use and LTS gets a commission. Even better, it would be amazing if the design was published on Thingiverse (or similar) in more accessible formats like 3MF or OpenSCAD and using a clearer creative commons license or similar. That step would likely attract more community interest in the project.


Pricing

These are not cost-effective vs mass produced headphones. Think of them as bespoke craft items, with all components being zero-compromise, top of the line items. Notably the drivers cost 149GBP retail. At 559 euros for the entry level model, I think these are a good deal.

 

I'm very happy with this tweaked setup - a work from home config with more comfortable pads, a short & light cable and a DAP / UPNP renderer. After a few hours of testing against my HD6xx, the detail and resolution of the EllevenAcoustica drivers seems truly remarkable.

Edit: after a week of the tweaked setup, I prefer these to the Focal Clear OG, principally due to tonality (without EQ) and reduced weight: 310g vs 450g.

 

I've been thinking about making parts available for printing per request on certain websites (including Shapeways), however, lately the prices of 3D printing have skyrocketed, especially on websites that offer such "public friendly" services, the smoother their system is, the more they over-charge for the printing itself unfortunately. For instance parts on Shapeways printed per unit are in some cases more than 2x as expensive as I'm able to print them for per unit during somewhat larger production runs, with same exact materials/technologies. A better solution would probably be to add individual parts to my shop so they could be ordered individually, which is already possible through custom orders if someone contacts me and requests stock parts or modified ones, but I do agree it should just be more clearly organized on the website. I also understand that dealing with CAD files is quite difficult at first and that CAD software is by default expensive, but that's the nature of it unfortunately. The solution is to offer individual parts in either directly 3D printable formats, or as already built parts.

Also to clarify, the parts in the downloadable files are actually entirely compatible to fully finished headphones, some details on mechanical parts are just simplified for the sake of making them more DIY-friendly. For instance, the yokes for the V2 headphones that I use have laser cut stainless steel inserts permanently bonded into them for extra strength, but the V2 uploaded yokes don't have the cutout for that steel piece, since it would also require someone to laser cut their steel pieces (which is very expensive for small quantities), sand them by hand to the exact thickness and shape to fit into holes with just the right tightness (because the very small and thin steel pieces warp during cutting and need to be straightened and shaped by hand afterwards), bond them using quite expensive adhesive that isn't widely available, and use a pretty sizeable 3D printed vice/grip tool that keeps the yokes in exact shape and curve for several hours while the glue is curing, otherwise the parts could warp, and the spacing of 0.75mm between the moving yokes and cups is too tight to allow for that, it would cause the gaps between parts to be uneven. So for someone just playing around and doing some DIY it's easier to just 3D print the simpler part, it's strong enough already, just maybe not as over the top strong as I want the parts on sold headphones to be. So the differences between the downloadable part files and parts used on production headphones are of that nature and meant to make the DIY process simpler and more easily approachable, but can still easily be used for modding, experimenting, further changing the designs, etc., the free to download files are meant to be a starting point for someone wanting to make a fully custom headphone.

 

I'm glad you've found a config you like, I also personally prefer larger pads for the sake of comfort.

 

A longer term (2 month update):

I listen to music more now, and almost never with other headphones if I have the choice. HD6XX sound worse in every respect. Focal Clears are fatiguing without DSP and are too heavy. I do use DT-1350s (closed) for their sub-bass and noise insulation when commuting. I use my X5A/DT-51 mashup when there is construction noise or heated conversation nearby.

I wish I knew if it is the EllevenAcoustica driver or the LTS V1 headphone that makes the magic, but it is there.

Two thumbs up!

Edit: There's some synergy at play, especially with the LTS V1 and Walkman. I slightly prefer the Focal Clear on some setups.

Spoiler: I am using a bit of DSP when it's available

nice, but not necessary.


Also Ozone Imager or Waves NX

 

Just wanted to show these nyczaj earpads which are designed to sound like the included L-cush but are more comfortable and over-ear. With these in place, the LTS V1 is quite bassy.

At the 1-year mark, I'd still say these outclass Focals being much lighter and with much higher build quality.