Does anyone here have any insight about the Audio GD NFB15.32 with the LCD2? The LCD2 is a possible future upgrade for me and I'd prefer no to have to invest in another amp. The GD is supposed to have quite a bit of power. I know it's supposed to be a warmer sounding unit but with the new fazer LCD2's having a bit more a neutral sound that shouldn't be too much worry I would think.

Yeah, I knew Arny back in the day on RAHE. He was rather argumentative and did some serious flaming but seemed like a decent guy in private conversations. Strange.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to try a real level matched DBT, I wrote an Android app called "ABX Audio" that makes it easy to try.
Now when my Meier Corda Jazz arrives - any day now - I'll crawl into my hidey hole with the LCD-2 and a thousand or so CDs and come out a day later with a review.

I Have a WooAudio WA3 - OTL AMP. Please, I would like to know if anyone had experience with LCD-2 + WA3. 
Because the WA3 be a OTL, I have problems with low impedance headphones? Can I damage the amp?

vkalia said:

I dont know if anyone here remembers Arny Kruger, a big proponent of ABX testing from the 90s,  but that DBT-uber-alles mindset leads to such a sordid mindset that sucks the life out of enjoying music.   "Verify or ****" is a needlessly antagonistic and excessive position to take.

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Hoooooly crap. I read about 30 pages of argument between him and Amir Majidimehr on AVS. Arny was such a horrible dick to Amir and called him a newbie over and over again. Amir owns Madrona Digital and was a corporate vice president at Microsoft and helped create WMA. The kind of crap Arny would throw at him was amazing, but it gave me a lot of insight to his side of the argument, even if I completely disagreed with him most of the time when he'd throw his opinions in. There's a few guys on there, like Ethan, that just go berserk any time people cross them.
 

mrc001 said:

  Yeah, I knew Arny back in the day on RAHE. He was rather argumentative and did some serious flaming but seemed like a decent guy in private conversations. Strange.

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This reminds me of one of my favorite Penny Arcade comics, positing one of the truest statements in internet history: normal person + anonymity + audience = total f**kwad.
 
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 

^ that's also one if the truest statements in social psychology: anonymity --> diffusion of responsibility (loss of accountability) --> antisocial behavior.

heretixaevum said:

  Does anyone here have any insight about the Audio GD NFB15.32 with the LCD2? The LCD2 is a possible future upgrade for me and I'd prefer no to have to invest in another amp. The GD is supposed to have quite a bit of power. I know it's supposed to be a warmer sounding unit but with the new fazer LCD2's having a bit more a neutral sound that shouldn't be too much worry I would think.

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I've been listening to the LCD 2.3 - a name I just made up for the latest ones with fazer or whatever they call it. I haven't used that amp, but I have been using an amp on the dark/warm side of neutral and I find it spectacular. The LCD 2.3 is a very neutral headphone with almost perfectly flat frequency response after HRTF correction so I would not call it a "dark" headphone. It sounds like whatever amp is driving it. Dark or bright is not necessarily a bad pairing, just depends on what you like.
 
The amp I've been using is a Headroom Maxed Out Home, a solid state amp that is very clear and detailed, but a touch on the warm and dark side of neutral. These things are subjective. I feel that with live acoustic music, you have to listen for details like musicians breathing, fingers sliding on strings and pages turning. So I don't like amps or headphones that accentuate that detail - it sounds false and ultimately fatiguing. Nor do I like audio that veils that detail. It should be there, but you should have to listen for it.
 
"Dark" sometimes means "veiled" but it doesn't have to be. Just like "bright" often means "harsh" but doesn't have to be. You can't say one is more "real" than the other. Even if you consider live acoustic music as the absolute reference, it's not really absolute, more like a moving target because it sounds completely different when played in different rooms and when listened to from different places in the room. Do you like the sound of the 10th row back, the front row, or sitting in a chair on stage next to the musicians? All equally valid but each sounds quite different.
 
Currently playing:
http://www.amazon.com/Tour-De-France-Debussy/dp/B000WM803A
This is the most jaw dropping incredible flute recording I've ever heard. And as a flute player myself I have a lot of flute recordings in my library.

I have both. You won't hurt the amp, it's capacitor coupled. That being said, it does not produce enough power to get very loud. At low levels it sounds ok. It sounds better with 5998 than 6080 with LCD-2. Output from an iPad actually sounds better IMHO.

bblegram said:

I Have a WooAudio WA3 - OTL AMP. Please, I would like to know if anyone had experience with LCD-2 + WA3. 

Because the WA3 be a OTL, I have problems with low impedance headphones? Can I damage the amp?

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bblegram said:

  I Have a WooAudio WA3 - OTL AMP. Please, I would like to know if anyone had experience with LCD-2 + WA3. 
Because the WA3 be a OTL, I have problems with low impedance headphones? Can I damage the amp?

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You won't damage it but OTL doesn't have enough current to dive the can well.  I would either go with a solid state amp or a tube amp that will deliver a lot of power.  Tubes traditionally deliver a very high amount of voltage, which is fine for high impedance headphones but will not have the current to drive the lower impedance stuff.  I would get a mjolnir over a WA3.  

grindingthud said:

I have both. You won't hurt the amp, it's capacitor coupled. That being said, it does not produce enough power to get very loud. At low levels it sounds ok. It sounds better with 5998 than 6080 with LCD-2. Output from an iPad actually sounds better IMHO.

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With your answer, I just test my LCD-2 with WA3. 
You are right! The sound was much worse compared to LCD + fiio e17. 
With low volume, it was not too bad, but .... When I plugged my Sennheiser HD 650 into WA3 ... The difference is huge! 
Thank you!

zashoomin said:

  You won't damage it but OTL doesn't have enough current to dive the can well.  I would either go with a solid state amp or a tube amp that will deliver a lot of power.  Tubes traditionally deliver a very high amount of voltage, which is fine for high impedance headphones but will not have the current to drive the lower impedance stuff.  I would get a mjolnir over a WA3.  

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I did some calculations, with the specifications of LCD-2, so I get 120 dBSPL .. I need the AMP delivered approximately 790mW (6.0 Vrms and 115mA) considering LCD-2 with 60 ohms / 90dBSPL/1mW 
You think I'm right in the calculations? 
I'm buying a Meier CONCERT to pair with LCD-2. I believe the Meier CONCERT easily provide that. 
What do you think?

I finally got a balanced headphone to speaker out cable and tested the LCD2s with a Fiio A1 amp.  There is a little bit of hiss but nothing noticeable once the music starts.  I haven't spent a lot of time with it but considering the price, the A1 outperforms a lot of headphone amps that cost a lot more than it.  Compared to my WA6, the A1 sounds a more clear, the WA6 sounds very muddy in the mids compared to the A1.  The bass extends lower with the A1 as well.  I may look into adding some resistors on the speaker outs to get a little more play with the volume knob.  I can't turn it up much past 9 o'clock without it getting too loud.

bblegram said:

  I did some calculations, with the specifications of LCD-2, so I get 120 dBSPL .. I need the AMP delivered approximately 790mW (6.0 Vrms and 115mA) considering LCD-2 with 60 ohms / 90dBSPL/1mW 
You think I'm right in the calculations? 
I'm buying a Meier CONCERT to pair with LCD-2. I believe the Meier CONCERT easily provide that. 
What do you think?

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I think your calculations are little off.
90 to 120 dB is 30 dB louder which is 1,000 times the power. If 90 dB takes 1 mW then 120 dB takes 1 Watt.
1 Watt into 60 ohms requires 7.8 V and draws 130 mA of current.
 
I don't think you need a headphone or amp that goes up to 120 dB. Have you ever heard what 120 dB sounds like? It is so loud the safe exposure time is about 5 minutes. Most people wince and express discomfort or pain beyond 100 dB. Anyone who listens that loud would not be an audiophile for long; he'd go deaf.
You might say, well it's only for transient dynamic peaks that last a few seconds. But most music has well under 30 dB of dynamic range. So if the peaks are at 120 dB then the average music level is above 90 dB. Continuous listening at 90+ dB can cause hearing damage.
[ Not trying to rain on anyone's lifestyle - listen as loud as you want. Just trying to convey that the 120 dB standard is unrealistically high. ]

mrc001 said:

 
I think your calculations are little off.
90 to 120 dB is 30 dB louder which is 1,000 times the power. If 90 dB takes 1 mW then 120 dB takes 1 Watt.
1 Watt into 60 ohms requires 7.8 V and draws 130 mA of current.
 
I don't think you need a headphone or amp that goes up to 120 dB. Have you ever heard what 120 dB sounds like? It is so loud the safe exposure time is about 5 minutes. Most people wince and express discomfort or pain beyond 100 dB. Anyone who listens that loud would not be an audiophile for long; he'd go deaf.
You might say, well it's only for transient dynamic peaks that last a few seconds. But most music has well under 30 dB of dynamic range. So if the peaks are at 120 dB then the average music level is above 90 dB. Continuous listening at 90+ dB can cause hearing damage.
[ Not trying to rain on anyone's lifestyle - listen as loud as you want. Just trying to convey that the 120 dB standard is unrealistically high. ]

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mrc001 said:

 
I think your calculations are little off.
90 to 120 dB is 30 dB louder which is 1,000 times the power. If 90 dB takes 1 mW then 120 dB takes 1 Watt.
1 Watt into 60 ohms requires 7.8 V and draws 130 mA of current.
 
I don't think you need a headphone or amp that goes up to 120 dB. Have you ever heard what 120 dB sounds like? It is so loud the safe exposure time is about 5 minutes. Most people wince and express discomfort or pain beyond 100 dB. Anyone who listens that loud would not be an audiophile for long; he'd go deaf.
You might say, well it's only for transient dynamic peaks that last a few seconds. But most music has well under 30 dB of dynamic range. So if the peaks are at 120 dB then the average music level is above 90 dB. Continuous listening at 90+ dB can cause hearing damage.
[ Not trying to rain on anyone's lifestyle - listen as loud as you want. Just trying to convey that the 120 dB standard is unrealistically high. ]

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OK! You are right! 
I do not want to listen to 120db ... what I would like is an amp that can deliver this power, not necessarily in this volume I will listen. 
I believe that an AMP that can deliver this power, has much better quality at lower volumes (11 o'clock for example ...) with low distortion ... 
But thank you very much for your explanations .. I'm beginner in this hobby .. and I have a lot to learn!

bblegram said:

...
I believe that an AMP that can deliver this power, has much better quality at lower volumes (11 o'clock for example ...) with low distortion ... 

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Possibly but not necessarily.
 
What you can be sure of is that an amp "X" rated to deliver 1 W of power at a certain level of distortion, will have equal or less distortion at lower output levels.
However, you may find a different amp "Y" with a max output of only 100 mW that has lower distortion than amp "X" at 100 mW and below.
If you only listen at 100 mW or less, then amp "Y" is better.
And for the LCD-2, 100 mW makes 110 dB - even louder on the new LCD-2. This is super freaking loud.
 
This is how unrealistically high power ratings can mislead people by encouraging them to overlook less powerful amps that have higher sound quality. The LCD-2 is easy to drive and doesn't need a ton of power. Quality is far more important.

mrc001 said:

Possibly but not necessarily.

What you can be sure of is that an amp "X" rated to deliver 1 W of power at a certain level of distortion, will have equal or less distortion at lower output levels.
However, you may find a different amp "Y" with a max output of only 100 mW that has lower distortion than amp "X" at 100 mW and below.
If you only listen at 100 mW or less, then amp "Y" is better.
And for the LCD-2, 100 mW makes 110 dB - even louder on the new LCD-2. This is super freaking loud.

This is how unrealistically high power ratings can mislead people by encouraging them to overlook less powerful amps that have higher sound quality. The LCD-2 is easy to drive and doesn't need a ton of power. Quality is far more important.

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again thank you! I'm learning a lot from you. taking advantage of their knowledge, what is your opinion on LCD -2 + meier audio CONCERT? is a good combo? I'm asking this because I'm almost buying a CONCERT.