REVIEW – Audeze LCD-3 planar magnetic headphones - Page 33  

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero 

I'm a big fan of her music and I find her recordings very well done. Not a jazz fan...or just Patricia Barber?

I like both.  Heaven forbid I have to listen to Diana Krall pretend to sing.  In fact, they have live Jazz at one of the Uni's here every Friday.  Let's just say Craig traumatized me w/ Patricia Barber and Carla Bruni so it's not part of my go to material for AB.
 

It's not just Craig. Patricia Barber Modern Cool Track #7 is ubiquitous. I too have been guilty of using it in the past, until I suddenly realized that it wasn't very useful in evaluating gear since everything sounded good with that recording. I've since switched to using some of your standards (Talking Heads, Madonna) in its place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

It's not just Craig. Patricia Barber Modern Cool Track #7 is ubiquitous. I too have been guilty of using it in the past, until I suddenly realized that it wasn't very useful in evaluating gear since everything sounded good with that recording. I've since switched to using some of your standards (Talking Heads, Madonna) in its place.

I ran into another Hfier who used to do that w/ another band who will go unnamed as to protect the Hfier since it's non-ubiquitous.  I had to buy the album to figure out why he was hearing what he was hearing on phones that just did not compute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

I don't think you understood what I meant. I didn't mean kind-of-crappy recordings, I meant kind-of-crappy stuff (like headphones). To be more clear: Patricia Barber's recordings are so well done that it sounds good even in a crappy car system. This is why I don't like to use her stuff as a reference. The guys who engineer her stuff probably had a setup consisting of high-end systems, boom boxes, car stereos, ipods, TV speakers, etc. and worked the hell out of it to make it sound great on everything. This is actually possible to do. Some of the top production and sound engineering teams actually do stuff like this.

 

Actually, not the guys but the guy. Why not go to Jim Anderson's site and ask him about it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

Actually, not the guys but the guy. Why not go to Jim Anderson's site and ask him about it?

 

Ask him what exactly?   I didn't see an implied query in his post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

I don't think you understood what I meant. I didn't mean kind-of-crappy recordings, I meant kind-of-crappy stuff (like headphones). To be more clear: Patricia Barber's recordings are so well done that it sounds good even in a crappy car system. This is why I don't like to use her stuff as a reference. The guys who engineer her stuff probably had a setup consisting of high-end systems, boom boxes, car stereos, ipods, TV speakers, etc. and worked the hell out of it to make it sound great on everything. This is actually possible to do. Some of the top production and sound engineering teams actually do stuff like this.

 

I think that most would agree that the better the mastering techniques the better the audio track will sound on lessor types of equipment. And that is my point, only I am trying to get the point back into the topic of high end headphones and of-course high end upstream gear and recording (source material) techniques rather than non headphone gear. That is why I am bring up Binaural recordings.

imo the only reason to go with high end headphone gear is to bring out the best of good source material, like Patricia Barber's recordings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaxilus 

Ask him what exactly?   I didn't see an implied query in his post.

 

Whether he "probably had a setup" of garbage to great monitors, which I highly doubt. We are talking about Jim Anderson recording great musicians, not someone making sure The Monkees sound OK on a cheap car radio. Interesting speculation, but "probably" outlandish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillysally 

 

I think that most would agree that the better the mastering techniques the better the audio track will sound on lessor types of equipment. And that is my point, only I am trying to get the point back into the topic of high end headphones and of-course high end upstream gear and recording (source material) techniques rather than non headphone gear. That is why I am bring up Binaural recordings.

imo the only reason to go with high end headphone gear is to bring out the best of good source material, like Patricia Barber's recordings.

 

Ah. Understood. I actually have quite a few binaural recordings (to my knowledge, there are not that many), but I haven't considered them as reference material for evaluating headphone setups. I guess I should rotate them in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

To be more clear: Patricia Barber's recordings are so well done that it sounds good even in a crappy car system. This is why I don't like to use her stuff as a reference. The guys who engineer her stuff probably had a setup consisting of high-end systems, boom boxes, car stereos, ipods, TV speakers, etc. and worked the hell out of it to make it sound great on everything. This is actually possible to do. Some of the top production and sound engineering teams actually do stuff like this.

I feel the same way about Jack Johnson.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillysally 

 

I think that most would agree that the better the mastering techniques the better the audio track will sound on lessor types of equipment. And that is my point, only I am trying to get the point back into the topic of high end headphones and of-course high end upstream gear and recording (source material) techniques rather than non headphone gear. That is why I am bring up Binaural recordings.

imo the only reason to go with high end headphone gear is to bring out the best of good source material, like Patricia Barber's recordings.

 

 

Ah. Understood. I actually have quite a few binaural recordings (to my knowledge, there are not that many), but I haven't considered them as reference material for evaluating headphone setups. I guess I should rotate them in.

I might have to give this a go as well. I ended up buying that weird Explorations in Space and Time album from HDTracks. I've been more interested to see if I can upset them with Orchestral Fireworks though, which 'stats can handle with ease.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olias of Sunhillow 

Same here, Peter. I'd say my LCD-3 has tighter bass that goes a bit deeper, but doesn't quite have the bass quantity of the LCD-2.2s. Certainly nothing "flabby" about it -- except the listener.

 

My impression is similar. Footnote, if I remember right, the bass of k701s was pretty good in my old system.

As did I...While it may be good for evaluation purposes I just don't really enjoy it much...Disappointing really.

EDIT: I do really enjoy the track 'War' though. The drum kit hits like mad on that track and sounds excellent.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 
 

I ended up buying that weird Explorations in Space and Time album from HDTracks. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MorbidToaster 

As did I...While it may be good for evaluation purposes I just don't really enjoy it much...Disappointing really.

EDIT: I do really enjoy the track 'War' though. The drum kit hits like mad on that track and sounds excellent.
 

 

 

That album is really good for meditation

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

 

Ah. Understood. I actually have quite a few binaural recordings (to my knowledge, there are not that many), but I haven't considered them as reference material for evaluating headphone setups. I guess I should rotate them in.

On a side note. Beware some Record labels were misusing the word Binaural and using Binaural as a hype word for Stereo, thereby giving the impression that Binaural was a new recording technique and therefore better than Stereo. When in-fact it had nothing to do with a true Binaual recording technique, just mots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

I feel the same way about Jack Johnson.

I might have to give this a go as well. I ended up buying that weird Explorations in Space and Time album from HDTracks. I've been more interested to see if I can upset them with Orchestral Fireworks though, which 'stats can handle with ease.

 

I'd recommend a copy of the Ultrasone demo disc if possible, some nice binaural samples on there I use.  Can't imagine Ultrasone actually uses the disc itself though (cough...cough).

Slightly off topic - but may be of interest to any people interested in the LCD-3 who live in the UK.

When you go to order these fro the Audez'e we site - the drop down box to show which country you live in - apart from the fact this needs to be input as well as for calculating the postage - the UK (or Great Britain or England) are nowhere to be seen ??

So if you are over here it looks like you can't buy them - despite us being a pretty large HP market. You should see some of countries they ship to - but no UK.

I emailed Audez'e a week ago and so far they haven't replied. Great service! And i bought LCD-2's as well so i'm an existing customer.

Anyone any views?