Audeze LCD2C Measurements and Impressions

After some experimentation I can definitely confirm this. On something with less power like the Mojo 2 vocals sound compressed and muffled. I’ve got them on the EF499 right now, which has a stupid amount of power for its price, and holy shit. These have to be the most slept-on cans in the under-$1k bracket. I’ll post full impressions later, but in short, me likes.

 

I feel like I need to come back and give these their fair shake. The truth is, I think I've slept on these headphones.

When I got them, I was very back and forth on them. Their tonality isn't what I'm used to - it's wayy darker than my HD650's, and it has a distinctly 'planar' treble bent to it that I can't place. Up until a couple of months ago, they sat for ~8 months untouched. Something gave me an inkling to fire up the Liquid Platinum and give them a go. I was originally thinking about getting rid of them, just putting them on to confirm. But they got me in an almost magical way, and now I'm enchanted.

My chain for them may even be part of the problem. Right now it's:
PC -> toslink -> OG Modibit -> Liquid Platium SE in -> Balanced FAW Noir MK2 cabled LCD2C

Spoiler: rambling about source

I think the synergy with the Liquid Platinum is excellent (it's just an excellent amp and one of my favorites ever.) But my toslink-fed OG Modibit might not be the best match for such tonally dark and lush cans, as much as I love its romance when it's going to the high-impedance out on my more slammy and lively SW51+ to my everyday-driver HD650's. Toslink is my solution a very noisy PC and USB bus - the noise carries through the signal itself and affects both balanced and unbalanced output sections. The only way I've found around it is total electrical isolation from the PC - all of my gaymer gear is getting in the way, and may be affecting how my DACs perform. At least the FAW Noir MK2 balanced cable I'm using seemed to leave a good impression on @rhythmdevils when I lent it to him - and I know that guy really likes tinkering with Audezes. I don't wanna put words in his mouth, I'm just not a cable guy. He is and I recall him being impressed by it. I remember him saying he might include that cable in his mod entourage.

I think I could probably get more out of this with a better/balanced dac. Definitely a consideration for the future if I can talk myself out of the Aune S17. I need a class A room heater for the Florida winters. I just like having a bunch of different topologies... from the Vali 2 with it's weird mix of tube preamp and solid state output section... ....or the SW51+ which is just a perfectly-executed SET amp punching way above its weight with nothing but a simple input supply, a pair of rockin OPTs, and a circuit that takes cheap/common tubes nobody else would put in a tube amp and makes them both very linear and very prone to only giving the pleasing kinds of distortion... or the unicorn design that is a good, working circlotron headphone amp in the LP. Why not a JFET class A? Do I need two literally and sonically warm 8W headphone amps warming my shelf? No, no I do. I definitely don't not need it.

I actually really love these headphones now. I even like the grain sometimes. I think maybe they'd run the risk of being TOO polite if they had any less treble energy. The peaks are better than bad overall treble. These still have nice, smooth treble. It's a highlight, even. They just have these resonances that can make them sound tonally shifted and mess with the presentation of certain vocals and mid-centric instruments. By the time you get to the "air" range up past say... 7khz, they become silky smooth. There's a patch in the middle of treble range where it gets increasingly more papery, and then backs off to a smooth silk. But they do lose the final word on treble refinement - that is definitely the weak point.

Overall, it used to bother me a lot more - and it's not like I got used to it. I put them down for months and came back finding myself less bothered by it than I expected. It's one of those things that very occasionally bothers me initially, but forget about as I quickly become immersed in everything else that this headphone does well.

I must confess, I've always wanted to love these, because I think the matching matte black surfacing with multi-material design, on a utilitarian form like this, is peak. When I think about what good audiophile headphones look like, the LCD 2 Classic is archetypal IMO. I still have some quick photos from when I got them. Look at these things!

Gorgeous - you know this is serious business.

The design has always been clean, but I'm telling you, there's something with the harmony in the materials and the build that makes these look and feel so solid and clean. Everything but the cups and pads are metal. And the cups themselves are a nylon-doped injection mold - so very heavy-duty, tool-grade plastic.You have to buy the expensive drills to get this good of plastic. Even those little logo badges are metal-back with layered, heavy plastic that gives the logo lots of contour.

Basically, no frills, but obviously luxury. Maybe this is just me - it really hits on this inarticulable ideal that I have for how high-end headphones should look. Car guys probably get it, for your favorite class of cars there is that one that makes you go "Now, THAT'S a CAR!" These are that car for me. Not the super-cool or fancy car everyone loves, but the less-assuming Goldilocks that does everything just right.

I still think the treble is a bit grainy and unrefined. I DO notice the peaks. Fortunately, the peakiness isn't the kind that necessarily cuts acutely through. It's more like a hanging resonance that coats everything down. The further you go up the frequency spectrum, the more things take on a papery, plasticky, and sizzly tinge.

I still don't understand how you have a headphone that's dark and also hot. But it actually isn't that bad to my ears these days. The overall presentation is that of a lush and laid-back headphone. So much so that you'd be forgiven for thinking them dull.

I think I get at least part of what people like in the Audeze sound. In spite of the planar resonance issues, they have a very lush and natural overall presentation with a very high degree of technical competence. A presentation that is in fact so laid back, that you take for granted the many granular layers of detail frothing out of the sound. They are of a certain quickness to their presentation of detail, where every element of the mix is perfectly stacked in its own discreet pocket, and there is this sense of fine dynamic texture to all of it. The stage is intimate, but the imaging is decently accurate... but man, the dynamic control these headphones have brings what I can only call "deep detail," like brushing a fur and feeling every individual strand between your fingers. They have this minuteness, very small details can emerge clearly from a deep background.

The detail in the mids is like, startlingly fine. It's one of those things you easily take for granted with the tone, but they are extreme resolvers. You just don't think they are because they make it sound easy and have an image that feels like sitting close to nearfield speakers. They have insanely high 'event bandwidth' in terms of the amount of stuff that can be happening within a given sliver of runtime before they run out of headroom for very fine textures and details to emerge. These are cans where I can close my eyes and go down a rabbit hole peeling back satisfying details. It just doesn't make you confront them - they're there, if you wish to indulge. But we'll keep it easygoing in case you just wanna kick back and feel it.

Like, they're so good at fine dynamics, that they take loudness-war rock and extreme music from the 2000s and make it sound like it has dynamic texture and depth. Even though the headroom of the source is actually very low, they are still controlled enough to fully present the dynamic play that IS there. It has a way of taming their overtuned highs while also contending with their overcompressed nature. Again, unencumbered. They don't fall off when met with dynamically flat music that would push a lot of other headphones out of good performance. And they do it without offering a moments forgiveness to them lol. You know they're bad mixes and they sound like bad mixes, but now there's a hint of naturalness and musicality, dynamic and groove. It's because it's so controlled that it can 'keep up' with the little bit of dynamic information there and pass it down, whereas a more 'lively' or 'slammy' headphone would just turn it into a wall of "hits." The LCD2C can really take an overcompressed mix and open it up. The separation helps out so much with hearing distorted guitars and vocals distinctly in those kinds of mixes, and it also brings up the atmosphere.

That's worth noting, too. I hear the tiniest atmospheric sounds with these. Again, with that lushness you never really expect it, and then new layers in things you've heard many times are just kinda sitting right there. I've come to love that as a unique little trick these do. They just have this fantastic emergent quality about them, and it's like they're not even trying to.

I think the simple way to describe these things is smooth and quick. Very fine and intimate presentation overall. La-z-boy in a Bugatti. It sounds laid back because it's unencumbered. You can tell these are very well controlled by how much microdynamic life they have. I actually don't think I've heard many other headphones that do such a nice job there. It's not just the resolution - it's gotta be up there in total resolution, but it's also how well the image fits the pixels available. It doesn't feel like it's stretching or straining, and manages to portray every little bit of detail without railroading it through your earholes. They're deeply analytical headphones in disguised as polite and fun cruisers. You wouldn't use them to mix/master like you might with some of Hifiman's heaviest hitters in resolution. These are for kicking back and digging deep at home. They never hide anything from you, but it's not like a cool, bright work lamp. More of a 'warm-leaning daylight on your writing desk' vibe to the presentation of detail. You won't get the most accurate tonal picture, but you'll appreciate every element in the mix and if you turn your brain off, your body will move around.

That's where the magic in these most is for me. They have just, GOBS of detail oozing out of them, without any of it going harsh or overbearing. It manages to feel 'simple' and intimate, with this ornate, tapestry-like presentation of great detail. The midrange is just packed with detail. Everything that exists in the track is put in its own pristine little pocket of time.

And it's not like the macrodynamics are lacking. It's just that they lean more well... lean and poised. They're not the strongest at it, but are more than competent and capable. Quick and light punch. Maybe a little too light for some, but I don't find it actually lacking body. It's just very level and accentuates nothing. One thing these headphones kill at is the OVERALL bass presentation allllll the way to the lowest sub bass. Nothing superfluous and nothing spared. There are no dynamic holes/overswings.

If I play say, "30 Girlfriends" by Freddie Gibbs, every note in the low 808 melody undercutting the whole beat comes in full with equal priority to each note. That track sits at the edge of where headphone bass roll-off and unsteadiness show big time... you hear where it loses the plot when parts of the melody have holes (and usually a bump or two on the way down.) These cans are just like "So... is there more or can I go home now?" And at the same time, the bass sounds large and clear. It has that room-sized scale to it, something that makes the bottom end sound like speakers in a room in the best way possible.

Dynamic control comes into play a lot with the bass, too. You can EQ the crap out of the bass and make them bass canons very easily. I recommend it, in fact. Very fun and big, satisfying bass that just becomes delightfully bouncy and rounded with boost. But part of the reason I think that works is that very speaker-like presentation of low frequencies. They can really come to life when you crank the bass, like speakers reaching their happy-points of excursion distance and filling out the space. But the stock presentation sounds good with everything. It kinda doesn't miss a step on the low end, or fundamental midrange.

TL;DR: The slightly weird treble doesn't stop them from being an amazing detail retrieving, bass traversing headphone that I now look forward to putting on throughout the week, no matter what I'm gonna be listening to. The performance is excellent and the presentation kind of has to be heard.


The only bother about these might be the price. Personally, I prefer these to their newer Fazor designs. So for me, $800 bones is fair - "Oh, so the better Audeze is cheaper?" Like, if you like the sound of these enough they can probably be an endgame contender.

A lot of people probably aren't going to agree with that. I always seem to fall for outlier gear to an extent. There are other models on the LCD line that do this or that better than these, but they give up that lush and natural presentation that has inexplicably little slack on the bottom and more detail than it has business showing to do it.

There are things they excel at greatly as planars, with a presentation that is really unique among them. But there are a lot of contenders for more well-rounded planars in this price range now. These definitely have to be tried before you buy. People who love them will really love them and find them irreplaceable. But I also know that I myself had a hard time with the tone and presentation at first. Now, they're one of my favorites that I've ever tried.

IDK, I feel like these things are a tuning tweak or two away from being perfect as planars. The performance is 100% there and the tone is workable. I mean, I guess the LCD 4 exists. But there's a yuuuuuugggee rift in price there lol. But again, comparing these to other LCD models, you are getting a lot of what Audeze does well for the money. You gotta spend at least double to get to headphones that are a significant upgrade on em from Audeze.

Highly resolving, agile and easygoing planars with a bit of a speakery vibe. I like em.

Nothing is gonna shake my HD650's off of my head, but there really are days where I'm excited to come home and put them on. I look forward to comparing them to the Hifiman Arya's with the stealth magnet design.

 

The shit they do to hyper compressed, hyper-processed computer djent is bonkers. For instance: this track may not be everyone's cup. I've heard it on a range of things and I can only describe it as being as smooth as carbide paper, more scooped than a ricer's spoiler, and so chained and limited to oblivion that it's starting to sound psuedo-bit-crushed, like digital plungers trying to clog-bust your eardrums.


This is some of the worst mixed kind of modern metal IMO, the modality of destruction is like EXPLICITLY dynamic and I am especially sensitive to that in a way where sometimes stuff like this is mildly physically discomforting to me. It's meant to sound offensively aggressive, just the epitome of edginess. It basically wrecks things in the opposite way black metal aims to, massively overproducing it instead of making sure you are as unprepared and hands-off as possible. Just crank everything. I think it's fun from time to time, though I won't pretend like it's immediately sonically pleasing in any way.

LCD2C makes stuff sound so massive, clear, tight, and weirdly... chewy? It sounds straight up good, even GREAT. I wish I could describe the sense of texture between the guitar, bass, and drum tracks. They EXCEL at this in ways that make zero sense to me. It's so full of heft, snap, and texture. This is usually the AGGRESSIVELY grainy sounding stuff on most setups, but with the LCD2C even the sampled cymbal overheads from the programed drums sound good.

Everything is just very smoothly congealed, and I can basically just point my ear at what element I want to hone in on and immediately acquire it, putting a spotlight on the texture. There is definitely an art to how these guys hone their sound. It's just harder to get into because it's really all about exploring the barest intervals of groove and the interplay they can have with textural and atmospheric elements. It gets repetitive from a conventional stand point, and sounding conventionally good also isn't even on the list. Yet, these straight up take it from harsh and rough to layered and refined. Big, clear and intense. That guitar toan is straight up chewy and RICHHH on these, triple-layer chocolate cake goodness. LCD2C didn't simply tame the beast, it TRAINED the beast.

The next thing I had lined up was Steven Wilson's "My Book of Regrets" ...and Steven does care about dynamic range. Pretty big switch in sound and mixing sensibilities. I haven't looked but by the sound of this song, there's not a TON of hard limiting going on, even if it has more compression a lot of his earlier stuff it's still below modern standards in terms of dynamic squishing. It's a song that sits in different pockets of it at different points, with a lot of layering and dynamic activity, him being a producer he just seems to like putting every addition and change-up he can squeeze into the sauce of each passage. It has louder and busier passages, and then passages that open up to be much more delicate. IDK, maybe it's me, but I find most of his music to be a rewarding listen on stuff with good microdetail and that stays true here. Sounds just as great, I love the care this man puts into the bare sonics of each element.

I also had Porcupine Tree's time flies. Sounds phenomenal.


It seems like everything I play on them sounds great. I'm in a really narrow range of things they do well - anything with rock-like energy tends to be a good fit.

I was also listening to some indie rock, korean pop, hip-hop (standout right now - all of the synth work and layered vocals on Kendrick Lamar's GNX sound stellar,) I did some jazz and I think some Guthrie Govan, as well as a whole bunch of EDM from various eras, and the more chilled-out/idm-side. A lot of what fits under the banner of hyperpop sounds amazing. It's another one of those cases where those mixes are so overtorqued and hot, with a lot of dynamic fuckery that these simply have zero problems cracking open and revealing to you a holography of sonic gamuts. I'm just kind of stricken by the rendition it does of most things. There are maybe a couple moments where that resonance just hits weird, but depending on which way I go with my digi set-up, I should have my Behringer DEQ-2496 back in the chain to go after it with the para, maybe add a lil shelf of bass. I can convert the toslink to AES and even back if need be, to put the EQ before the DAC. No biggie, all 2PAC.

I don't remember what I was even listening to when I put them back on for the first time, but I remember vividly catching myself straight cheesing and chuckling to myself about how good everything I had listened to up to that point sounded. It took me out of what I was doing, made me stop and just listen for a good hour before getting back to it. I then spent the next 6 hours with them on my head. Once you "get" these things, they *really* get you. For me, the comfort is very good. I have the pre-revision pads with the heavy memory foam and I may have to try and find a pair floating around out the for back up, because I find them supremely comfortable - the material is super-nice to the touch, as well as fortunately being durable and good on long-term thermals in a 74F room. The clamp is somewhere in the middle for me. I wear them with the yoke arms four notches exposed from the yoke up to the retainer and they just rest solidly but gently over my ears. I don't think any part of either ear actually touches any part of the pads or tops of the cups. The band *barely* doesn't touch the strap, but I find that's enough to make the band disappear. Depending on your head, it might be a problem. Personally, I can go up or down a notch and get more or less strap at the expense of slightly less optimal clamp. It's comfortable in any of those 3 positions, though. I tend to not think about it, and they find their way where they need to be without me noticing, and then stay there. The hammock works for my head, and so I don't feel the weight, or excessive force anywhere. I usually struggle to take them off, if anything lmao.

What I find most interesting is that sometimes I actually find myself dialing back the volume over time. I'll be at the upper end of moderate levels for me and take it back to low-moderate. It's not like it's too loud or they're having trouble with the volume. I have more than enough power on deck for nearly any headphone lol. But I find that the detail retrieval sometimes seems to go up a couple of levels when it's turned down a little bit.

IDK, these things continue to surprise and impress me, the more time I spend with them. I usually don't even go for headphones this resolving as they tend to have things with the staging, imaging, or tone that make the detail less worth it for me. I can easily live and die by my OG Modibit, SW51+ and HD650 for the whole gestalt that offers, that makes them headphones I can put on any time in any mood and be fine. But these just have a way of making detail alluring to me. I think a big part of it is that it couples that detail with natural, competent, 'realistic' bass that makes experiencing detail seem much more tactile.

"Tactile" is definitely the word for how it handles detail. They're visceral, letting you feel detail.

 

I've been putting off writing up more impressions, and now you've gone and done it for me.

The LCD-2C has to take the cake for the amp-pickiest headphone in my collection or at least the most amp-variable, and that's no easy feat. I spent my morning insomnia hours going through different source chains and trying to puzzle out what would work best. I even reached deep into the box of Schiit and pulled out the Magnius, since it seems like these like power and they like to be driven balanced, and I figured the attributes that made it grating with any other headphones might serve the LCD-2C well.

In the end, I still landed on the EF499. Of the other chains I tried, the Zen One Signature + Magnius combo worked decently well and vocals were relatively clean, but detail and punch/slam were still a step or three behind the EF499. I'm now really curious about how the higher-end Hifiman DAC/amps would perform. The EF499 was an impulse buy due to the ridiculous combo pricing on the Hifiman store, and it's worked out well enough that an EF500 or Serenade might be in my future.

Oddly enough, second place goes to the balanced out on the NW-ZX707 in high gain mode (mine's an uncapped model from Japan). The Walkman is a strange beast due to its direct digital amp having some phase shift in the low frequencies, and there's a DSP-based correction option provided in the stock player. I left that off and the LCD-2C behaved really well, with a bit more punch than the EF499 even, but more haze/grain as well. What can I say? I guess I'm a Sony fanboy, and that apparently extends to Audeze too.

 

Great review, @robot zombie, and I'd agree with a pretty much all of it. I listen to a LOT of rock and metal, and these headphones really do it for me. Describing the detail as "tactile" is spot on.

I'd also add - I have a Monoprice Liquid Platinum that just doesn't play well with my LCD-2 Classics as far as the treble goes. To me, it imparts a metallic ringing noise. But I can't say enough nice things about these headphones with the Mjolnir 3 from Schiit. Cleans up the treble while maintaining everything else that's good about these headphones.

Edit: Forgot to mention sources! If you have the Monoprice Liquid Platinum, I would definitely recommend trying a balanced DAC. Whatever the amp does to convert SE to balanced just collapses the soundstage. Also - I have an OG Modi Multibit, and mine has some harshness in the treble, which might also contribute to highlighting the "planar treble" of the LCD-2C. The OG Gungnir A1 is what I rock now, but I'm sure there's other good balanced DACs out there to try at any budget, and it works well for me on both Mjolnir 3 and the MP Liquid Platinum.

 

Well, there’s an interesting new development. Santa Amazon just dropped off a Questyle M15C, which I grabbed on a lark now that it’s sub-$100 and has the Cirrus DAC I prefer to the low end ESS dongles. I threw the LCD-2C on it not expecting much and it’s actually the best thing I’ve tried so far. The haze/grain is almost completely gone, detail is good, and it slams like hell. Soundstage and layering aren’t as good as the EF499 or the ZX707, but it’s not bad either. Surprising, but I’ll take it!

Edit: I've dropped some more impressions of the M15C in the USB dongle thread. Right now I'm listening to Hannes Bieger's Balance mix through the M15C + LCD-2C and it's fantastic, as I'd expect given that he mixes his productions on Audezes.

 

A coupla years back I got the Jot on loan here and I remember the balanced out being pretty nice with the LCD2C's. I had JUST got them and the LP, and then that Jotunheim loaner showed up and I felt a bit of remorse over not getting it. The dac left a lot to desire, but that amp could definitely hang. On a good day that's not bad pair for ~$1200 total.

I really don't dislike the LP - I just know I'm not getting the most out of the amp in the first place. I think it would more than suffice if it was just fed proper balanced through an all around better DAC. I definitely don't hear any metallic ringing or even anything remotely that egregious - if anything it seems to excel at some of the same things, being smooth and underselling how much dynamic life and detail it has. Sometimes that kind of pairing is doomed to go into excess, but in this case I think it can potentially be favorable. Time shall tell.

Individual drivers, ears, tubes, what have you. I genuinely think it sounds great and have no complaints - just the curse of knowledge.

I'm pretty much buying the Aune S17 Pro to toy with. I haven't really seen much about it, but something makes me keep coming back to check it out. I'll be sure to check how that does, when I get it here and set up. I think it's either positive synergy or destructive interference with what people say about the sound of that amp. Dunno if I'll like it at all, honestly - though I suspect I will find a use for it lmao. Seems like a decently nice no-feedback class A that would do nice as a preamp for my monitors as well. I do just have to be that guy that puts a space heater on his desk but SIL. If I don't like it, I'll buy a Jotunheim, since that's what makes me think the Aune will at least be interesting. I don't see too many others making 7W class a JFET headamps in nearly the bracket other than the Jot, which with any luck this'll be somewhat of an upgrade to.

They also have a DAC option that caught my eye a lot more than whatever is in their combo unit with a 5W mystery amp in it - there's their $270 X8 XVIII BT Magic DAC, which has balanced and SE out, and interestingly enough, swappable opamps. Thing's got 7 freakin filter modes lol. Could offer some interesting tuning options, and the cost really ain't much. It's using an ESS ES9038Q2M - I'm not up on how contemporary sabers cut, maybe that's a good pairing, maybe it's not. I've just been booting around and it looked mildly interesting. I don't mind going out on a limb for something people aren't picking up, just to see what's on less-traveled paths. For all I know it's a junk chip in a junk implementation, heh

I just wonder how the preamp out would be - it looks like the balanced out goes through the preamp. If it's passive attenuation of line-level then it's fine, but if there's an output circuit that's gonna be a problem.


The DAC upgrade makes the most sense to me though - honestly I've mostly just been chilling on this setup for a few years now. I'm always happy to have a 'holy grail' in the simple HD650 + SW51+ + OG Modibit. Just works, every time I put them on.

But I've had all of the same stuff for a while now, and I'm starting to get a picture of things I would want out of jumping my setup. A balanced DAC is basically a must for a fair bit of the stuff I want to run.

Thanks to @gsanger for putting the Gungnir back on my radar - it really should've been as I've also considered a Bifrost.


I just have to say again how beside myself I am with how much I missed out on these headphones. These were an absolute steal at ~$600 when I got em, too. Crazy good deal when you consider the build quality and performance of these. And I'm sure people not jiving with the toan put them up for sale, it's pretty cool that an option like this exists kind of off on a side bracket as it's great value for non-fazor lovers. I guess I'm one now - I'd take these over LCD 2 or X ANY day. I can genuinely say I'm so glad that I kept my pair. These things are awesome. Handsome gentlemen that they are.

Can I also just say? I never thought we'd be looking at so many great planar magnetic offerings when I got into this stuff a decade .5 ago. It's honestly one of my favorite things to watch unfold in headphones since I started the hobby - I've learned to respect the crap out of these things. Even those cheap Hifimans can really slap, but something like this is on another order in terms of how nice they are as an item and as highly proficient AND intuitively enjoyable headphones. My ears were just crossed. So many planars do so many different things so well, but I find so often they fall just a little unsatisfying short of potential. I guess that's the case with these, too - the drawback of so much diversity. But on the flip side you wind up with so many great headphones with a lot to offer. Every time I put on mid or higher grade cans on and get wowed by first impressions, it seems to be a planar.

 

@robot zombie, let us know how you like the Aune amp with the LCD-2C. I’m still liking the Questyle M15C best with it, but I’m curious about how a beefy class A amp does. I’ve also found that the LCD-2C seems to be picky about cables too, or at least revealing of cable differences. I don’t really want to get into it with the cables-don’t-matter crowd, but I picked up a silver-plated cable and it definitely resulted in a brighter and cleaner sound with less of the mid-treble recess that can screw with vocals, though it was also perhaps a bit fatiguing as well.

 

I will absolutely do that. If I like it enough or there's something interesting about it, it might go on a little tour here.

And I will just say about cables - I'm not so much a doubter as I am not working with that level of detail in terms of making things come together. It's "off in the margins" for me - not because it's ALWAYS marginal but because I am of a mindset where I'd rather things work for me without having to go THAT far, so I generally don't. If there are differences to be appreciated there, that's all well and good. I just don't go that far down the rabbit hole. I don't know if I can hear the difference or not, and I'm okay with that. Same way I typically don't go out of the way to compare DACs, even knowing that they do influence the sound and having different experiences with different ones. Both are things that barring egregious problems, are not gonna make or break a setup for me.

We all have to draw our own margins for our picture of what good sound is. For me, everything trails off a lot past transducers and amps. Others go all the way down to the cabling for the data signal, and clocks for the DACs. Perfect is impossible for personal audio. So the question we all have to answer is "What is 'perfect enough' for me?"

I can fully accept and believe that these are cable-sensitive headphones, and I just happened to pick the right cable. I did wanna make sure I at least got a really good one. I didn't buy a headphone cable worth 3 figures because I think they do nothing. The one I have for my HD6xx's costs more than they did when I bought them.

I mean, you're not wrong - cable talk is wasted on me in terms of me giving good feedback. But I listen, and just take it from people who really investigate that stuff to let me know what's up. I just don't roll cables as more of a philosophical rule. If I ever run out of headphones and amps to try, THEN I'll go there. If I like a headphone, I'll buy a nice cable to compliment it, just to put a nice bow on the performance of them. But that's for headphones I already like. I won't buy a cable to save a pair I don't enjoy otherwise. That's the line for me.