Audez'e LCD-4 -- again -- anyone...?

@Tyll Hertsens is posting his LCD-4 review tomorrow. He's on twit.tv today. He hinted the review ain't so good... saying that the clarity of those headphones allowed him to nail down what he doesn't like about Audeze treble response in general

 

Gotta love that product variability! I'll stick with my 2f's for a while yet.

 

I'm definitely excited to see what Tyll has to say about these headphones. They've gotten a lot of hype from numerous sources and have certainly caused quite a stir with their price. I will probably never buy or listen to them but I am very curious to see what Tyll finds.

 

i figure I'll find some sucker selling them at %60 off eventually, and then I'll pick up a pair for meets.

 

The question is: will you like them? I tried them this week at Canjam, and they're not bad, but I didn't really lust after the sound. I think any sound quality increases are marginal at best over the 2,3 or X. Your results may vary!

 

Good point, I'm really not that optimistic. Audeze has been a general disappointment. Clearly I just need to find The One True LCD-2r2©.

 

All the LCD 3s pre-fazor I heard were muddy. As in you know how Led Zeppelin IV has hole in the ground drums? Go sit in the hole and have someone cover you with mud. That's what they sound like. Make sure the hole is in a cave somewhere.

 

I finally got to hear the LCD-4 yesterday (on the new drivers).

I'd had them on order with Audeze myself but got tired of the delays and excuses and, when the announcement about the massive driver revision came out I decided to cancel my order, look elsewhere, and wait things out for a while.

Still, my local dealer got their first pair in, let me do the unboxing and have the first listen (which means any impressions I might state are based on completely non-burned-in headphones). The available source/amp for my listening was not something I'd have chosen myself (McIntosh MHA100), but it was a least a consistent, impedance/matchable, driver for the LCD-4 and the other LCD models they had available.

So, noting that this is far from the best gear to drive them with, that they weren't burned in at all, were being driven single-ended, a few very brief, high-level, first impressions:

The soundstage/headstage was the widest I'd heard from any Audeze headphone, but was notably smaller than either the Abyss or the HD800S. They were silky smooth across the entire frequency range represented by the music I listened to. The mids are pure liquid, but noticeably less prominent than the LCD-3. I would say the LCD-4 seems more neutral than the Abyss, but not as visceral or dynamic. Bass performance was excellent, but was outclassed, for me, in extension, articulation and detail by the Abyss. In general the pace of music presented by the LCD-4 felt slower than the HD800S, Abyss, and LCD-X. The HD800S out-detailed the Audezes.

And from a sensitivity perspective, the LCD-4 needed more juice than any of the other Audeze cans, as well as the HD800S and the Abyss (which surprised me).

When they announced the driver change I was concerned about the apparent requirement for 2.3x more power for the same SPL level and what that might mean to people with marginal amplifiers (for example, my bed-side rig uses a Woo WA6 which is fine with the HD800S or LCD-2.2c, but clips with the Abyss and, I would assume, clip with the LCD-4 also).

While I'd put them ahead of my LCD-2.2c, the store's LCD-X and 3F, they weren't far enough ahead to warrant me pulling the cash from my wallet (despite having been anxious to have them for months now) and, at least in their pre-burned in state on the available gear, make me even happier with my AB-1266 purchase.

At this level something has to be immediately impressive and purchase-inducing or it has to wait until I can hear it AFTER burn-in as I don't want to be "adjusting to it's sound" during any alleged "burn-in" period.

I was underwhelmed ... but will still give them another shot when I can get my hands on a pair that are properly burned-in AND that I can audition on my own rig.

 

You've got balls, @Tyll Hertsens.

IF LCD-4 Review: http://www.innerfidelity.com/conten...planar-magnetic-headphone#zZsU2FlpmqjMVg9Z.97

 

Looks pretty damn good to me. Based on what I heard at CanJam, I still think it's Audeze's best technical performer, although the Audeze tuning is obviously going to turn people off.

That's just the system's noise floor. Unless some very wacky behavior is going on, if you see distortion decrease as SPL goes up then you're not looking at distortion.

 

I thought Mercer's unit was pretty awesome. Fleshy but also good microdynamics and involvement factor. You need to crank it though. You already know I don't listen at Milos levels.

 

This needs to be quoted just....because.

What am I, to old and flabby for you? Need a little fleshy tension?

You probably need to see Mike about his shit.

 

You just need to exercise those pelvic floor muscles a little more, and everyone will come bangin' at your door. It's an area much in demand in audiophilia these days

 

Just some notes I want to make from the IF article, but don't want it to get mobbed by the armchair wizards over there...

(1) Smaller grain structure means there are more grain boundaries. Larger grains conversely means fewer grain boundaries and thus fewer possible sites for crack initiation. That said, fatigue behaviour is a very complex process dependent on many factors. It's likely that other material properties which stem from the fine grain structure (like higher strength) will offset the possible rise of crack initiation sites. The type of aluminum used is also extremely important, as different alloys can display wildly different fatigue behaviour: some alloys soften after cyclic loads, some harden, etc etc.

(2) Deposition processes usually create ultra-fine grain structure. It's possible to even do amorphous, though I doubt that's what they're doing here. I suspect that perhaps the slow process creates some epitaxial grain structures (super fancy word meaning: aligned) which offers an interesting combination between fine grain and large grain properties.

(3) Technically it would increase stress since you're distributing the load over a smaller cross sectional area... but (and I'm guessing here) it could be that reducing the thickness changed the... ah how do I explain this... the three-dimensional stress matrix. Imagine an elastic band; when you pull it, it obviously stretches and you think to yourself that obviously force divided by cross sectional area is your stress. But actually the elastic also gets thinner; the tension from your hands creates a sort of solid matter "vacuum" that pulls in the sides and thins it out. This thinning action is perpendicular to your applied stress and results in sheer stresses. Now here's the kicker: tensile strength and sheer strength are not the same thing, and oftentimes the sheer strength is much much lower. So going back to the beginning, it's possible that reducing the thickness of the traces does something mathemagical to reduce the overall sheer stresses felt by the trace.

Ok after writing this I really really want to see some micrographs of a failed driver trace...

legit question: do those guys at Audeze have access to an electron microscope? being able to look at the fracture surface of those traces would be interesting

 

Just finished up the innerfidelity vid. I sometimes read on HF that people don't understand why people hold Tyll to such high esteem (I think I saw someone say "Tyll zealots" at one ponit), and I think this video is a great example of why I follow IF.

1. He wasn't 100% positive in his assessment of the headphone. There was definitely balance. Ultimately he came off quite critical of the LCD-4. I like the fact you mention @4k there should be a higher standard. Seems the entire hobby has turned into people throwing out money for whatever garbage people are manufacturing. And said manufacturers are milking it.

Add this on top of the fact he was in contact with Audeze directly, it took some guts to come out and give an honest review. And this is very rare to find on any other site or blog.

2. He's very knowledgeable. I always learn some technical information about headphones, response curves or harmonics. I was totally floored when he really dug into the HD800S.

3. He's a sharp listener. Tyll is pretty much always on the money for headphone listening (except for the philips X2, dat treble).


Still not as good as the Ultrasone Edition 10 video, but I'll give it a "LCD-3 effort".