Thanks, I got PM's from people all over the globe puzzled about my sale of the LCD-2 and the V200 which is up for sale. My main reason as I said was because my ears are more intensely drawn to speakers. For the many months I had the LCD's I tried not to listen to music from speakers so I could hopefully adjust to the headphone paradigm. It took me a while to make the transition and for a while there I was doing OK with it. The LCD-2/V200 is a fine combination and it is exciting. But then came the catalyst which was composed of a few components which reversed my listening habits. First it was the LCD-3 that I had on loan not too long after it hit the market. It was veiled. It cost $2K. It didn't blow me away and I realized that even without the veil it was not nearly enough of a sonic vision or aural enticement for the $2K price tag. This really dashed my hopes for the future of headphone pleasure. For $2K I could get a far more pleasing, realistic and engrossing sonic experience than I ever will from the $2K LCD-3. To be honest this really bummed me out for a while. I was hoping the next revolution in headphone design was really going to wow me, and when the $2K price tag was announced I thought the time had come. The LCD-3 is a fine headphone and wether or not it is worth $2K to some people is completely a subjective thing, but for $2K I expect a headphone to blow me away with an experience that makes me marvel, makes me completely forget where I am, and that there is a universe of music around me. all around me. Instead I experienced not an revolution in headphone technology buy just another step in the Audeze evolution which was far short of my expectations. I have a lot of respect for $2K. $2K is a lot of money. Not only did the experience fall short of that respect but so did the QC of the LCD-3.
Another component in the the catalyst is my fear that prolonged headphone listening is simply dangerous to ones hearing in the long term. I'm not talking about excessive levels that are simply dangerous to start with but the average levels experienced with headphone usage to get the proper amount of musical detail and impact. Having a transducer right up on my ears for 5 or so hours everyday and the effects of this practice was a growing concern to me particularly after I used the LCD-3 in this manner for over three weeks. The LCD-3 had these very soft leather pads that created a tighter than LCD-2 seal around my ears and for me it created an extra amount of air pressure inside my ears that grew more and more uncomfortable at average listening levels and after 3 weeks I began to get ringing in my ears. This development and my already growing concerns about headphone usage led me to take a 6 week hiatus from headphones altogether.
During that six week I listened solely to speakers, and it became clear to me which direction I had to go back to my decades long practice of speaker listening and abandon the pursuit of the headphone paradigm.
