Quote:

jonstatt said:

 
I am not sure I would agree they are wildly different, although sure they do vary. But what you cannot get from graphs are perceptions like, it sounds "wider", or more "open". The thing is, if they varied so much, and changed over time so much, then you would typically end up with a scenario where both left and right drivers were very different and you would get a very muddled soundstage as instruments actually moved from left to right depending on the frequency.

Click to expand...

 
Most all headphones are pretty stable in the upper bass, mid and lower treble.  Changes tend to happen at the ends and there isn't really enough going on there for you to notice channel imbalance in a 'matched' pair.  Especially true of planars since their imaging isn't very pinpoint compared to say an HD800.  
 
And adjectives do very much fall on a freq resp graphs.  You just need to know what ranges are responsible for what perceptions.  When they aren't overblown you can absolutely have a deviation from neutral that delivers the sonic goal without drawing attention to itself.  For example the LCD-3 by virtue of dropping upper mids and treble inversely boosts fullness, warmth, punch and rumble but recently also jacked up the upper treble to increase air.  The HD800 goes a different route boosting the definition and warmth range.  That boost to definition is what makes it picky to upstream gear since any grain, hardness, aggression or brightness is going to hurt.  I've actually cancelled it out on my HD800 so that I keep the modest warmth bump but get linear treble performance.

Quote:

solude said:

 
For example the LCD-3 by virtue of dropping upper mids and treble inversely boosts fullness, warmth, punch and rumble but recently also jacked up the upper treble to increase air.  

Click to expand...

 
When you say "recently", do you mean they have made another change in the response of the LCD-3s following the veiled/un-veiled scenario? I remember graphs from about April last year showed an increased response in the 1k-2k bracket which seemed related to the veiling. And I know they increased upper treble when they brought out the LCD 2.2. Has there been another change to LCD-3s in recent months?

I haven't looked into it that much, just that at some point 10-20K got a boost of nearly 5dB that was there in 06/12 models.

Quote:

solude said:

I haven't looked into it that much, just that at some point 10-20K got a boost of nearly 5dB that was there in 06/12 models.

Click to expand...

 
I need to go back and see the old charts again. I know that mine shows the bump in the higher frequencies around 12k (chart August 2012 with serial starting 26) but I thought in terms of upper treble they were always like that.

Quote:

hi rez said:

My less than one month old LCD-3 right hand driver went out last night.  Sigh....

Click to expand...

Great customer service - exactly one week to get the LCD3s back from Audeze, including shipping both directions.  Audeze replaced both transducers.  When I first listened to them before the failure, I was pretty much floored by their musicality.  In the week or so before the transducer failure, they seemed more ordinary - they were "nice", but the original excitement wasn't there.  Wonder if the imminent transducer failure was affecting their sound.
 
Round 2.  Once again, I am totally floored by these.  Midrange - voices - female voices....  Bass - not over or under emphasized, just there.  Very detailed, but not analytic.  If I want to listen to detail, I can - it's there.  If I want to listen to music, the detail doesn't get in the way of the music.  I enjoy listening to music.  These headphones get the music right.

no failure so far from April 2013 batch for 2 weeks of the purchase date. for the sound, I am not sure that if the sound can get better. the bass is just impossible to forget 

Just got my LCD3 back from repair, due to left side went dead last month.
 
Looks like they have tuned the frequency graph from 6kHz to 8kHz (see below). The top graph comes with the headphone when purchase new, the middle is the plot when they received, due to a defective left driver. The bottom is the plot after their repair.
 
It really makes my wonder what's the standard for LCD3 frequency plot. I'm letting it to run in for 100 hrs, before serious listening to it. 
 
In the meantime, I'm using my T1 with WA2.

Why is there always a roll off in treble at around 1.5 kHz and then bumpy out to 20 kHz? Why can't they just tune for a perfectly flat response from 20 Hz to 20 kHz? As far as sonic driver performance relates to frequency response is this pronounced roll off and subsequent volatile jacking up and down purposely induced or is this just the best they can get it perfectly flat being un-obtainable?

Perfectly flat would sound awful.  5dB-10dB drop from 1KHz-20KHz seems to be the sweet spot.

Quote:

okw3188 said:

Just got my LCD3 back from repair, due to left side went dead last month.
 
Looks like they have tuned the frequency graph from 6kHz to 8kHz (see below). The top graph comes with the headphone when purchase new, the middle is the plot when they received, due to a defective left driver. The bottom is the plot after their repair.
 
It really makes my wonder what's the standard for LCD3 frequency plot. I'm letting it to run in for 100 hrs, before serious listening to it. 
 
In the meantime, I'm using my T1 with WA2.

Click to expand...

LCD3s seem to be very variant in the 5-10kHz range, might be due to the nature of the ultra-thin diaphragm and difficulty to get the tension right.

So, no 2 pair of LCD3 sounds the sameo_O

Within reason yes.  0-1KHz is pretty stable through them all.

Quote:

jerg said:

LCD3s seem to be very variant in the 5-10kHz range, might be due to the nature of the ultra-thin diaphragm and difficulty to get the tension right.

Click to expand...

 
I doubt that, my $ would be on measurement variability. Measuring lower frequencies consistently is much easier. At about 4kHz things get really tough to reproduce (even on the same pair of headphones). 

Quote:

varyv said:

 
As a recent owner of the HD800, I concur (unless there is something wrong with my pair). The level of detail that the HD800 is quite ahead of the LCD3. I was beginning to wonder if these are actually defective (I'm May 2013). The HD800s sound a lot more lifelike for classical pieces/ OSTs. Hell, even the bass is better on the HD800s in terms of clarity - the LCD3s almost sound wooly in comparison. Could you clarify when you purchased yours?

Click to expand...

Hi varyV,
 
I got mine from headphone.com (HeadRoom). The service was very good. I bought my HD800 from them too. 
 
FYI, when I plugged the LCD3 into my Hifiman EF-6 (unbalanced), not only did my earlier "over right eye" vocal issue shift towards centre, but the level of clarity (and bass) improved greatly (LCD3 run in about 60 hours by then)!! Now it (LCD3) sounds great and more detailed, a juicy HE-6 with wider soundstage than with the BUDA amp....I am definitely happy.
 
I think my BUDA balanced amp (which is a really portable good amp) sounded more "veiled'- perhaps not so bright a sound although rich ; I guess it is a different signature and anyway balanced representation sounds [at least to my ears] more compact and less treble-ly in general. My HE-6 still sounds good on the BUDA, but again different from the pairing with EF-6.
 
HD800+EF-6 also sounds great !
 
My recommendation for LCD3 is run with an EF-6...maybe there are even better amps at this price range but I am content.
 
N    

Quote:

macedonianhero said:

 
I doubt that, my $ would be on measurement variability. Measuring lower frequencies consistently is much easier. At about 4kHz things get really tough to reproduce (even on the same pair of headphones). 

Click to expand...

That's a valid argument, but to counter, note that recently-made (everything since early last year) LCD2r2s have had very, very consistent Audeze chart measurements even in the upper midrange / lower treble region, unlike LCD3s.
 
My guess is Audeze got LCD2 driver manufacturing consistency down to a tee; but not LCD3 yet, or maybe not until very recently.
 
These are all the post April-2012 plots of LCD2 (the ages for the specific units are shown on top right of each sheet) I can find in the main LCD2 thread.
 





 
Notice the consistent behaviour between 2kHz and 10kHz.
 
Compare that to okw's image of LCD3 measurements:
 

 
Now don't tell me somehow Audeze measuring methods introduce massive variability in that region only on LCD3, and not on LCD2.
 
Another hypothesis that could be posed is that maybe Audeze still hasn't settled with what exact upper end FR behaviour they want with LCD3, so they've been intentionally retuning it. But who knows.