Audeze LCD-X (2021) Measurements and Impressions: Audeze Strikes Back

Has anyone compared the LCD-X to the LCD-MX4? (An LCD-X with the stronger magnets of the LCD-4)

I would love to see a comparison of the 2021 LCD-X, LCD-MX4 and LCD-4.

im also wondering if the grills of the MX4 are removable as they have no screws.

 

I have a friend with the LCD-4 and I just got the X. Next time we meet, I'll ask him to bring his.

 

The LCD-4 with EQ still is/was the one to own if you are serious about that sound. I believe the "R" is right there with it, but a little 'different '

I really enjoyed the MX4 because it was the X+4-Fazor's IIRC. It has a little bit of fun, a little bit of reference and somewhat of an overlooked product. The 4Z just fits the heads that complained about their DAP and neck not being able to support the LCD-4. The LCD-3 was supposed to be (IMO) the cumulation of the LCD-2's research and where the market was going. I still own a non-fazor first-run LCD-2 for my own guilty pleasures. It eq's nicely and is like a cigar filled room after a booze soaked night. The LCD-R cleans all that nasty filthy night stuff away and leaves you a window into the music. Listening to the LCD-i4 after the LCD-R is a nice fact check. Used to be the other way around for many of my headphones.

 

I believe the LCD-MX4 and LCD-GX share the magnesium housing that can only be accessed via the baffle.

I had an early LCD-X and LCD-MX4, but it's been a few months now. The MX4 was clearly more detailed and lighter. The bass felt a bit lighter on the MX4 as well. The biggest issue was the MX4 had a very odd FR in the upper mids to treble. It was hard to AB them both because the FR on the MX4 sounded so wonky.

 

That means the MX4 is not moddable then I guess? Unless they have a completely different baffle. The other LCD’s back side cannot be accessed via the front and even then the adhesive pads make it too difficult to get in there to try things.

Damn shame I hope they don’t go with this grill with all models going forward. I guess the LCD-4 is my only upgrade path if I intend to mod them.

 

I've had a pair of 2021 LCD-X for a month, a short enough time to keep them within the money back return window, which I'll be taking full advantage of. The short version (of an already short review) - they're just okay. I'm not really understanding the hype, and fail to see how these are much of an improvement over the LCD-2F I bought in 2015 and later sold. In many ways, they're worse.

The good
-------------
The overall presentation / packaging is slick, the build quality is solid, they offer a fairly dark but neutral sound, and the bass is tight and deep.

The bad
-----------
Still very heavy and the new headband clamps hard, on some setups and mids seem a touch recessed / the treble rolled off, and on the whole they're a little unengaging.

The weight and comfort were the killer for me. Can't remember if I read it here or somewhere else, but they're supposedly lighter than previous incarnations? I was expecting better comfort, but sure didn't get it. Half the problem is I have a big head - the leather "cradle" feels short, and the metal headband can no longer be bent back to compensate. I can extend the yokes fully, and while they're positioned well over my ears, there's still clamp. With older Audeze headphones, you could bend back the headband a little for relief, and add an elasticated leather Lohb strap as a head cradle.

Sound wise, they're fine I guess. I wouldn't go as far to describe them as boring, but I didn't get much excitement from listening to them, even with higher end setups at the recent ETA meetup. I shot these out with @elwappo99's older LCD-X, and preferred Erik's headphones. I think he preferred the 2021 version, but didn't get his full take from only listening briefly.

As always, YMMV. There's always a chance I received a lackluster pair compared to a few possible unicorns out there. Definitely try before you buy with these.

 

I was glad I got to hear these before purchasing so thanks to @PTS for packing them along!

Every Audeze with a "suspension" strap I've ever owned had this weird issue where the strap sat on the metal band and therefore didn't suspend. Sorry, didn't think of that at the ETA meet. You can DIY trim the leather a bit and fix it, but it seems strange 4+ years later, Audeze is still doing this.

As for sound -- I found the overall tonality quite surprising, as many others have found. The bass has taken a much smaller spot in the presentation and is very tight and clean. The mids came up a bit more and the treble is still quite relaxed. I thought it overall sounded fairly coherent.

The bad to my ears was the sound seemed more compressed and not as detailed. It was missing that visceral slam that makes Audeze fans gloss over the other issues that come with Audeze headphones and has seem to be a signature of Audeze headphones since the LCD-2. Also the details didn't seem to dig as deep and sounded glossed over.

I would also be remiss to point out that I got my pair that PTS liked after going through 4 or 5 pairs of LCD-X. One major drawback is that a lot of the older LCD-X headphones had lots of unit variation and more times than not, I got a pair that had very odd mids and highs. The pair I heard from 2020 sounded downright funky.

 

I have done a lot of experimenting with various grills for the LCD headphones, and I need to walk back this hypothesis. I assumed the Audeze drivers would not be affected by being more open back, but they actually depend on a semi closed grill for damping the driver. This is because the semi closed girll restricts air pressure release from the back of the driver, thus damping the driver. This metal mesh actually further restricts air flow and so damps the driver in an important way for the stock sound and I would not recommend removing it from stock LCD-X headphones, or stock LCD headphones in general. I have removed it in my mod but I've made other changes to compensate.

Sorry for the bad suggestion. If anyone removed theirs, its' easy to put back, you don't need to re glue it to he inside of the grill, just place it on top of the black foam in an orientation so the glue spots don't show through the grills and screw the grills on top. tt's ok if they are loose, the friction will hold them in place. If anyone removed theirs and threw them away because of my suggestion, send me a pm I have some extras and will send you a pair, or pay for replacements from Audeze.

 

This section of a video from Audeze mentions the LCD-2 design having staggered magnets:



They also carried on the staggered magnets and combined it with the technology in the LCD-4 to create the special edition LCD-24 - so same magnets and same diaphragm.

 

Well if Audeze says so I guess it’s true. But I don’t see how it could be possible because I have Fazors I have taken off the front and back of the LCD-2 and they are identical front and back. Since the fazors line up with the magnets I don’t see how they could be staggered. Unless I’m making a goof and not looking at LCD-2 fazors but I’m pretty sure I am.

I have a stock LCD-2F here ill check it out when I mod them.

here’s a picture of a stack of like 6 fazors removed from various LCD models front and back.

 

Yesterday eve I got my (ex) LCD-4 back at home: I had sold them to a dear friend that came by for listening to Yggdrasil. So the differences with my lcd-x 2021 were quite immediately obvious. If you are familiar with Aeolus vs VO, it's a very similar thing. The X sounded immediately more relaxed / less aggressive. Let's say this is the first thing I picked up. The bass on the X were evidently rounder (not round per se, I find VC having "rounder" bass then both) and starts and stops was less abrupt.
The lcd4 had more 1k mid punch (maybe also assumed faster transient increases this sensation of punch), not as the VO but I felt the similarity (the VO has also all the high mids part that helps "pushing"). The X was smoother there, like it's downsloping a bit sooner. That's where the Aeolus Vs VO similarity is best fitting.
High mids seemed less sucked out on the X, even if the 4 is so full (considering also I was mainly listening to hard rock/metal/prog stuff) that I wasn't missing that FR part that much; but on the X it was more "correct".
Highs: well, to my surprise I remembered the 4 with an exaggerated "zzz", but maybe going from PC to Allo Digione sig. improved that part. Compared to the X, I felt similar presence there. Maybe now it becomes a bit difficult to evaluate for me, since it's a matter of balance with all the rest of the FR. I felt like the amount of highs were similar, but the X, feeling less presence in the mids (1k-2k approx), makes the highs stand out a bit more than the 4. Don't wanna say "disconnected". Both for my tastes are a bit unnatural, that's all.
In other fewer words, I really felt the X had all the technicalities of the 4, just scaled down by proportion (which proportion... Let's say I would pay 1250 for the X and 2500 for the 4), a more "forgiving / less in your face/ less ruthless punchy" sound, and similar tuning, just more "downsloping on the mids". To be honest, there were not details I could not retrieved on the X that I could on the 4: on that aspect, the X was that good (as far as I can discern). Both the X and the 4 feels very open headphones and make the VO feel more intimate, letting me being aware of its "semi-open" design. I did not payed too much attention to stage width, sorry, but for me the performance was very satisfying on both.
Sorry I don't have pics for this since it was a "between friends" eve and I didn't felt like taking pictures. Hope this gives at least some tiny bit of useful info and is not too obvious

 

In this context here is an interesting comment on Roon forums about the LCD-X 2021 and LCD-4 convolution filters for Roon created by Audeze:
"KMan Research Director - Audeze
Aug '21
LCD-4 preset will work quite well with the new LCD-X, we are close to finalizing the preset and for LCD-X and it is close to LCD-4 (just a bump in the upper mids) . "

So he is basically saying is that the main an maybe only difference is that the LCD-4 preset does not need the bump in upper mids that is needed, according to Audeze, for LCD-X 2021. But the thing is that LCD-X 2021 with the preset is maybe more neutral and slightly more resolving but has ""less agreeable tonality" than LCD-X 2021 without any FR correction.
How close they really are?
Anyway I would love to have @Vtory ears.

 

Didn't know Audeze offers conv filters. I am not a big fan of Audeze's eq setting in general tho -- their reveal eq wasn't quite my cup of tea when I tested them years ago.

Below is crin's measurements (as I haven't measured lcd4 yet). Can give you some idea where lcd4's response departs from x. You can also run spectrum analyzer for the conv filter file to see where/how they boost or cut.

 

I just assumed that Audeze preset for Roon is implemented as a convolution filter, but everything in the setup, customiztion of this preset confirms this. Roon worked with Audeze to provide presets for their entire line. From the FR graph I can understand that they added some bump in upper mids for LCD-X.

I ended up using this preset depending on the music I listen to. That's because it adds the details retrieval, accuracy of the sound stage, but it slightly changes tonality. I use preset for classical music but when I listen to jazz, rock or for any kind of casual listening I prefer LCDX raw, or with Jan Meier crossover.

 

I heard the LCD-X (2021) at TSAV on Friday. Listened on Jot 2 and it's good.

Strong macro, wider than I recall the old LCD-X being. Expected strong bass and treble seemed to lack anything bothersome. Staged pretty huge for an Audeze, didn't seem to have any of the compressed headstage you expect out of an LCD-2.

Mids had some kind of issue going on. Maybe a slight Audeze upper mid dip or something but there was flatness going on with vocals, which lacked dimensionality and had undesirable grain. Until that is fixed, combined with weight, they're a hard pass for me. I now understand why @rhythmdevils felt inspired to spend so much time trying to fix the vocals on this model (and reportedly succeeded with flying colors) because everything else is so damn good.

But... if they could package this sound in the upcoming MM-500 to get the weight down and also do something about the flat mids this would be a beast. If they don't, I expect @rhythmdevils will have to apply the lessons learned on the LCD-X to the MM-500 Definitive edition lol.

 

I'm super picky about vocals. That's all I will say