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

I tried the nighthawk at a local headphone store a few months ago, it was pretty abysmal in terms of clarity. Straight up muffled-sounding compared to other cans the owner let me try (LCD3, HD800, MDR-Z7, EL8C).

 

A gentleman on the headphones subreddit had actually modded some of the bass away and the mids partially back up with velour pads and acoustic dampening. It wasn't perfect though, but a lot of people seemed to like it as a curiosity of what it could become.

Have you tried the revised EL-8C yet? Apparently it is by and far superior to the crap they put out last time.

 

The Nighthawks are cleaner sounding than my HD650 and LCD-2 but out of unresolving gear they can sound pretty muddled.

The lack of distortion really helps them have clean sense of space between instruments. They also need time to break in which is mostly bollocks with other headphones but the Nighthawks out of the box sound boomy and a bit suffocated.

I confirmed this with having two Nighthawks one fresh out of the box and one with many hours on it. Using a spectrum analyser the Nighthawk doesn't exaggerate anything in the recording most headphones out there.

 

I got to try an LCD-4 yesterday at a meet and was disappointed. The LCD-4 was surgically clean in the bass and lower mids to be almost lacking in texture. The bass is also soft and lacks impact. The real problem was the treble was so shelved it sounded like a tiny bit of distortion above the other instruments as if the instruments were run through some weak pedal rather than metallic percussion: Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet with a shitty guitar pedal instead of cymbals, snares, and triangles.

The LCD-X at the meet was better and more resolving despite the slight grain. The X continues to be my favorite overall Audeze headphone.

The LCD-4 is smoother and deader than a formaldehyde-filled supermodel at a funeral parlor.

 

A bit over a week ago I got my first chance to hear the LCD-4, though in rather less than perfect circumstances, and posted my initial impressions here.

This last Thursday I got to take that same pair of headphones home to try out on my own rig (Yggdrasil/Ragnarok). In the interim, the dealer had left them playing to break them in properly. Since things changed a fair bit, I thought it prudent to briefly revisit those initial impressions – ahead of actually making a more detailed/comparative post …

When I came away from my first listen the LCD-4 were clearly very good, but not so good that I'd have taken them over my existing LCD-2.2c even if I didn't already own the Abyss AB-1266. I wanted to be wowed instantly and I wasn’t.

As a result of listening on Thursday and Friday, I have decided to add them to my collection along side my Abyss and HD800S etc.

That’s about as big a reversal in opinion as I’ve had when it comes to audio gear and felt it was worth calling out.

These things really do need to be broken in and fed with a suitably potent amplifier. Interestingly, while the LCD-4 has me winding the dial on my Ragnarok further around to the right than the Abyss, the LCD-4 doesn’t cause my little WA6 to clip like the Abyss does when playing bass-heavy music. Not what I was expecting at all.

I would still say the Abyss has the better soundstage, still sounds faster and is a more visceral and "fun" listen. However, the difference is mostly in terms of signature preference and there are areas that the LCD-4 is clearly better to my ears. The LCD-4 is smoother, darker (typical Audeze) and more euphoric/seductive in its presentation. If I had to characterize it, briefly, I’d say it takes the best aspects of my LCD-2.2c (which are the best pair I’ve heard to date) and the LCD-X and then improves on both.

While both Abyss and LCD-4 have a similar notch in their frequency response from 4 KHz 8 KHz, I find that more obvious in the LCD-4. Overall bass is comparable unless you run the Abyss with no seal (or a super-light one), in which case it is still clearly the headphone to beat in that area.

I'll have more details to follow as I spend more time with the LCD-4, but at this point I think both sets of headphones have a valid and complimentary place in a high-end head-fi setup; which I chose at a given time is going to be more about mood and flavor. Just to be difficult though, with all that said, if you told me I could only have ONE headphone for the rest of time ... I'd likely take neither and go with the HD800S instead!

 

Couldn't find any mention of Audeze's response to Tyll's review, so I'll post here.
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/how-do-measurements-sound-audeze

I'm not really sure what to take away after filtering the PR-speak (e.g. "Audeze designs its headphones to sound as natural and as close to the original performance as possible"), other than that all measurement rigs will differ so just let your ears be the judge.

Anybody with measuring experience have any opinions?

 

It looks like Audeze has updated this headphone

http://headphone.guru/the-audeze-lcd-4-update-the-best-just-got-better/

Now with a lighter diaphragm, different construction and twice the impedance. I'm sure upgrades are available to current owners. Worth another look to see if they fixed some problems.

At 200 ohms does this mean you can use it with OTL tube amps?

 

Tyll's review from April is based on a 200 Ohm version, so that guru seems a bit late.

 

Ah, I thought Tyll reviewed the original ones.

 

Ah yes, "the best just got better"... in other words: they had to come up with a completely new diaphragm because the original ones were failing at such an alarming rate.

 

Lets see if this new lighter material actually holds up better. The general trend over the past few years has been towards more fragile drives, so I'm not going to put much hope into that.

 

It's like they read the management chapter on planned obsolescence but not the followup on reliability and customer loyalty.

 

Nah, they just read some quick-n-dirty marketing strategy and ran with it. They skipped the long-term stuff, who needs that anyways?

 

As someone who tries to be objective, the posts here have me rethinking something I thought I was satisfied with (especially the first LCD-4 thread LMAO).

I'm new to Audeze, but I ordered a new Audeze LCD-4 for $2807 via Adorama's Black Friday combo deal. Been enjoying them for almost a week now, mostly with the Black Friday deal on the ifi micro iCan SE and micro iDSD I bought, but I also got an ifi Pro iCan which is very nice and has so much more headroom than my Oppo HA-1 (still using it as a stationary DAC).

They sound very accurate to me, especially the mid-bass and bass. To be honest, the treble has more detail and imaging is better than the LCD-3f's I returned to Adorama after a few days. I'd go so far to say treble detail and imaging is very close to the HD800's, just going off auditory memory.

If these are headphones that are going to give me issues after 3-4 years, I won't be happy although if there was an option to replace the drivers for $300-400 and renew the warranty that sounds reasonable. Just don't want to get screwed out of $2800 later on as I'm not rich...

Are there any options for $2800 or less (preferably less) that have a decent transferable warranty and post warranty driver replacement policy (was looking at the Focal Utopia, but not sure what I'd do if a driver were to have issues in 3-4 years and not sure warranty is transferrable)?

Also, has Audeze ever screwed anyone? From what I read on head-fi.org they seem to be fair about replacing failed drivers with the updated version even if out of warranty; anyone know they will do the same for the LCD-4 since the drivers apparently take more than a week to make?

Looking for something that is very accurate, detailed and images very well, but doesn't have something like the HD800's 6kHz spike and has more accurate/articulate bass. Although I feel the bass on the HD800's are accurate for many of my tracks (don't want second harmonic distortion like the HD800s), the LCD-4's sound a tad more accurate and articulate to me in the bass and mid bass region.

The other thing is, I'd like to not pay retail while a dealer makes $1200 or more off of me, as I hate having to lose all the dealer markup when I go to resale my used headphones or any gear for that matter (nothing against dealers, but as a middle class buyer I have to be frugal and usually buy used).

PS: I've ordered the superdupont mod for my HD800's to alleviate the small 6kHz peak and look forward to trying it. I still like my HD800's as they do a fantastic job on 96% of my audiophile tracks and are much lighter to wear (and they were "only" $9xx new).

 

wait till utopia price goes down to around 2500USD

 

I agree with the smoother, as far as the rest I found the opposite. The 4 was warmer and more resolving and the X was leaner and had a touch more sparkle and top end.

 

Audeze have already said the cost is $250 and that LCD4 owners get free upgrades for any new driver releases.

 

I don't know why @Psalmanazar says they sound dead either. To me, dead means the HF sounds dampened. He/she could just be used to and prefer brighter headphones though (perfectly understandable).

Coming from the HD800 the LCD-4 just sounds slightly more real, with vocals and bass sounding very textured to me and not lacking detail at all.

I will post some measurements with REW and my Earthworks m30 mic this weekend, replicating exactly how I measured the HD800's with pics.

Even if I return the LCD-4's (if I do it's only because of cost as I really like them), I do want to measure my specific headphones and compare to Tyll's measurements; only because there could have been improvements and it is known Audeze's drivers may have variances. No veil at all like the LCD-3's I returned (even with directly comparing to my HD800's).