[magiccabbage]

  Is it possible, do you think, that the HD800 is coloured, but with the reverse effect? 
 
A 'colder' representation of the music. Do analytical headphones subtract some of the warmth and essence of voices and instruments?
 
Who is to say where the exact 'reference' center point is?

I think most people would agree that if they had to pick a headphone that was at zero or neutral it would be HD800. 

 

[Matias]

What if Audeze puts the new technology from EL-8 into the LCD-3F? The Fluxor is a special configuration of the magnets to increase the magnetic field, and the Uniforce is a variable width circuit trace. These are currently used in the EL-8 single-sided magnet, but they could use the same in the dual-magnet of the LCDs, right?
 
New codename could be LCD-3FFU (Fazor, Fluxor, Uniforce). 

 

[Yoga]

  I think most people would agree that if they had to pick a headphone that was at zero or neutral it would be HD800. 

Are they the reference headphone used in studio mastering?

 

[preproman]

  yes the 3f
 
Yo prep - you are the perfect person to ask...... Does the HE6 have more extension and slam harder then the LCD3f? I want a planar headphone for funk/pop music mostly and am looking for something that can hit hard on older records. Having been turned around to the Audeze sound I am now wondering about the HE6.. It is supposed to be amazing with the WA5 and might even be a better pairing with my amp for Funk/Soul/pop. 
 
What do you think _ I am aware you haven't heard the WA5 but you might be able to steer me in the right direction. 
affirmative  - 3f

Yeah don't know to much about the WA5, I just don't trust headphone amps with the HE-5 - that's only because I haven't heard a "good" headphone amp that can beat out a "good" speaker amp for the HE-6.  Tony seems to love it.  
 
The HE-6 is faster, the LCD-3F is thicker, The HE-6 hits damn hard and tight, the LCD-3F hit hard to but with more decay after the note.  The treble on the HE-6 extends further out, the treble on the LCD-3F is smooth as silk and much better than my old LCD-3C.  
 
I use the LCD-3F with Rap music and some Jazz,  I use the HE-6 with most Jazz and R&B Soul music, Some Classical music.
Female vocals = HE-6 --> LCD-3F - but not by much..The LCD-3F are really closing the gap.

 

[SuperU]

   
Perhaps, rather than colour, 'promote', is a better verb to describe it. The 3F mids are slightly more forward, making the space slightly smaller, but brining more presence. 
 
Many people are enjoying the Xs. Some well respected reviewers have them in their collection.

Can't comment on the MDs, will leave that to someone with listening experience.

I like that way of saying it, Yoga. Makes sense. 
 
 

The LCD3F's were out when I bought mine but I delibritly hunted down the non fazor. Many commented that bass and mid-range was ever slightly less on the fazor.
I just love the buttery sound of the LCD3c. However yes after listening to the HD800, HE-6 and LCDX the LCD3 is coloured so to speak. LCDX is a beautiful headphone.

Great - leaning back toward the LCD-X.
 
 
 

  I agree with others here that the choice comes down to personal preference; and therefore the only sound way to choose is to audition both.
 

Well, would love to be able to audition these. Unfortunately, that isn't convenient based on where I live. For what it would cost to try to go some place where I could audition them, I could buy them. So my preference is... Get the best advice I possibly can and then take the plunge. That is what I did with my MDP headphones and I do really like them. Now I want to get an open headphone and am hoping the sound stage expands and the overall sound improves.

 

[mscott58]

I found the decision between the LCD-X and the LCD-3 (like any other high-end audio purchase) to be non-trivial and highly personal. One of them is highly likely to strike your fancy, and don't let anyone tell you what you should like. I personally loved the LCD-X's but then there was that "magic" in the LCD-3's (mostly in the mids/vocals) that I have yet to find in any HP that captured my soul and made the decision for me. My advice is to listen to both (and for more than just a few minutes) and decide for yourself. One resource that is great for this is CableCo's headphone lending library. That's how I auditioned the LCD-X's, taking almost 2 weeks with them to understand what they're about (had already done that with the LCD-3's via a different source). Enjoy and happy listening! 

 

[zeloutre]

Hi guys, just wanted to share some night computer writing...posted this on the WA7 forum but since it heavily involves my dearest LCD-3 I thought I'll also post it here
 
I think one has to post some impressions, so here goes, with a bit of background first. Sorry for the length, but I feel that in order to describe what I feel with the LCD3 on the WA7, I must highlight where I come from, sonically speaking...
 
I am pretty new to this hobby. I discovered the head-fi world in 2012 with the Shure SRH440 at the time, then SRH1840, then I decided to make the real jump and got the LCD-3 (original non-Fazored).
In parallel I slowly moved the ladder of sound card / amp / DAC, and got for some reason on the way interested in the electrostatic sound. All of which that leads me today to be the happy owner of one Conductor, one Soloist, one Stax SRM-323s amp and the corresponding LCD-3, LCD-XC, and SR-507 cans.
 
All of these are amazing products that generate exquisite music, with my special personal preference going for the LCD-3. But I was also mesmerized by the ghostly, aerial presentation of the Stax. Dreaming of a phone that could have some, if not all, of the qualities of an electrostat and a planar in one package, I was pretty excited to read about such a combination of sound being mentioned in reviews for the HE-560. A week later, while shopping for something totally unrelated in an audio store, I stumbled upon said HE-560, and impulse-bought it. My flawless logic then led me to be deeply convinced that, since I was again burning money on head-fi, I might as well finish the job properly and finally welcome tubes in my sound life.
 
A week of head-fi reading later, I had my sights locked on the WA7d + tp duo, mainly because of its looks. No: almost exclusively because of it looks. Sure, it had pretty good reviews, but I honestly didn't really read them. I mean: it was from Woo Audio, and it was, if not expensive in hi-fi terms, at least un-cheap. These two guarantees were the only backing I needed to cave in, given the overwhelming power of the fact that these are maybe the cutest pieces of Hi-Fi I have ever seen. Correlated bonus: extremely high WAF.
 
In the process of reading about the WA7 on head-fi, I learned about the concept of tube rolling, decided it was the bomb, and in utter - and a bit stupid - blindness ordered Gold Plated tubes for the amp, and those RAF Mullards for the power supply, which seemed to be - at least for several days - the endgame for the tp.
 
But I had to wait for the Woo for at least a week to begin my tube voyage, so I had a bit of time to play with my impulsively acquired HE-560. I still had after all some good old solid-state sound amping at my disposal. And after trying them out, I was really pleased with their sound when fed by my Conductor. They perform brilliantly, and, to my infinite satisfaction, exactly as expected. This combination is not the point of this write-up (what is?...) but the HE-560 with the Burson offers what I can describe as electrostatic-like precision and speed, coupled with the tactility of a planar. Since the phones were fed by three amps from the same source, I kept switching live between SR-507, LCD-3 and HE-560, and after some semi-serious listening, decided to sonically position Chinese as an almost perfect trade-off between Japanese and American. 
 
So... all this long introduction to basically say that I had already dreamt about, and a probably a bit conceptualized, the sound of the HE-560 on an upgraded WA7d/tp setup. I was for me some kind of tube-lushy electroplanar heaven.
 
Then the Woo pair finally arrived at my place, got eagerly setup by my trembling hands, and saw the replacement tubes plugged in immediately, without the stock ones being given more than a glance. At last my dream setup was ready to bestow to my ears the truth.
 
One little hour proved enough to make it painfully obvious: the WA7d/tp + HE-560 combo was...OK.
 
Pains me to say it, but to my ears, it was OK. Of course, here, OK means already pretty incredible relative to anything other than at least "summit mid-fi". But still, given the reviews of the WA7, of the HE-560, given the raving about these British Royal Air Force tubes, given, given... It was just OK. I was under the utterly horrible and as utterly immediate impression of disappointment. It didn't live to my expectations, and I knew - knew - that no, in time, it never will. I don't believe in burn-in anyway.
 
It was just a less than optimal pairing. Instead of an expected just right amount of vitality added to the spectral electrostatic-like sound in the upper medium and treble regions of the HE-560, alongside - of course - a killer bass giving both impact and depth, and all coming together magically to bring me to audio heaven, I obtained what I can describe as a fast but dry, analytical and even at times aggressive sound. The HE-560 kicks and beats and transients and sparkles in all the right spots, but it all seems a bit too digitalized. The sound was still enjoyable, just not at the level I had imaged it would reside. Maybe it was the tube combination, but it just didn't feel right to my ears.
 
My glorious but useless plan having been, in the course of one listening hour, thrown out of the window, I had to improvise. Preferably fast: buyer's remorse could strike me at any moment. Luckily, the thought process didn't take long: I got up and went for my LCD-3.
 
Utterly ignorant of what to expect, I plugged the Audeze in the Woo, fired up the Very Best of Supertramp in FLAC, and listened.
 
Three hours from this moment I can now safely say that I wasn't prepared for this.
 
I must have heard the Supertramp compilation at least 40 times, and tend to think I know the songs by heart. This, given the relative musical richness of Supertramp, makes for a good comparison point.
 
But in all honesty I don't think there is much comparison. As much as I love the rest of my gear, I seriously am at a loss of words to describe the increase in overall realism offered by the Woo setup to the LCD-3. As I said I didn't try the stock tubes (both for the amp and the power supply) but I will certainly at some point, in order to determine the impact of the EH / Mullard tubes, i.e. how much do they bring compared to the "basic" WA7d + WA7tp setup. However, in their upgraded state, the Woo boxes send to the LCD what I can only describe as a fuller, more coherent, more natural version of basically every song of Supertramp I ever heard, and probably every other musical piece that I know of.
 
Incidentally, detail retrieval its stepped up a notch, which in all honesty I find strange, given what I thought I knew about tube amps in general and the DAC part of the WA7 in particular. I do get more detail when using my LCD-3 with this setup than with the Conductor as DAC / amp. It's a run-down cliché but in these really, really familiar songs of Supertramp, I heard details I never knew were there. However, as much as this comment is to be expected when moving from say a Macbook jack port to a any successful $300 DAC / amp, I was truly astonished to realize it with a highly regarded $2000 setup as reference.
 
I said the sound was more natural, this is also a cliché but again - cannot find another word. Everything is just more defined, precise, has its place, its natural space. Soundstage is not only wide but seems also "realistically populated". Voice sing, I mean sing, there do not seem like signals trying, even if with great skill, to pass as voices. The general consistency of the sound was a shock to me. The crazily accurate mids, the intricately detailed highs, and the simply unreal bass...everything has just gone up a notch in terms of realism. A big, big notch. The sound coming from the LCD-3 was for the first time not the result of some really, really good digital-then-analogue reproduction of music, but just music. This step is for me enormous.
 
I seriously don't know what happens with this particular setup. For the sake of it, I tried the LCD-XC on the WA7 and it wasn't really the same. It was still excellent, but not quite the same. Unfortunately, don't have the X or the 3F to try them out too...
 
All in all, this long story closes to an end, with what I see as an unexplainable yet dramatically obvious conclusion: there is magic going on with a WA7tp with some Mullard tubes in it connected to a WA7d with some EH Gold tubes in it connected to a LCD-3 classic. I seriously cannot stress that point enough.
 
And I would be more than delighted to hear others' impressions with this setup, because I think it might be losing it a bit here...

 

[SuperU]

  I found the decision between the LCD-X and the LCD-3 (like any other high-end audio purchase) to be non-trivial and highly personal. One of them is highly likely to strike your fancy, and don't let anyone tell you what you should like. I personally loved the LCD-X's but then there was that "magic" in the LCD-3's (mostly in the mids/vocals) that I have yet to find in any HP that captured my soul and made the decision for me. My advice is to listen to both (and for more than just a few minutes) and decide for yourself. One resource that is great for this is CableCo's headphone lending library. That's how I auditioned the LCD-X's, taking almost 2 weeks with them to understand what they're about (had already done that with the LCD-3's via a different source). Enjoy and happy listening! 

Always best to listen first if practical.
 
In my case, it simply is not practical. The lending library you mentioned only lends within the US. And flying would cost more than the headphones. 
 
So thank goodness for this forum and helpful people without which I really would be flying blind. 

 

[RUMAY408]

  I think most people would agree that if they had to pick a headphone that was at zero or neutral it would be HD800. 

I am convinced of one thing the LCD3F is a better match for me with the HD800 than the T1.
 
I'm as addicted to these HP's as I was when I 1st purchased the HD800.

 

[mscott58]

Always best to listen first if practical.

In my case, it simply is not practical. The lending library you mentioned only lends within the US. And flying would cost more than the headphones. 

So thank goodness for this forum and helpful people without which I really would be flying blind. 

Great point. We need to convince more companies to set up those types of business models in other places around the world. Good luck and happy listening!

 

[magiccabbage]

 
I am convinced of one thing the LCD3F is a better match for me with the HD800 than the T1.
 
I'm as addicted to these HP's as I was when I 1st purchased the HD800.

+1  I agree

 

[upperbound]

Any owners of LCD-3 that live in countries where it gets really cold at winter? The wood on my LCD-3 fractured and I suspect it is because of the dry air (I live in Finland). The wood is getting replaced but I'm afraid it will happen again.

 

[EdmontonCanuck]

  Any owners of LCD-3 that live in countries where it gets really cold at winter? The wood on my LCD-3 fractured and I suspect it is because of the dry air (I live in Finland). The wood is getting replaced but I'm afraid it will happen again.

I live in Northern Alberta in Canada. Been known to get pretty cold here LOL. And it's incredibly dry here. No problems with my  Zebrano LCD3 cups.

 

[upperbound]

  I live in Northern Alberta in Canada. Been known to get pretty cold here LOL. And it's incredibly dry here. No problems with my  Zebrano LCD3 cups.

Well that is comforting. How often do you use the wood care kit?

 

[EdmontonCanuck]

Well that is comforting. How often do you use the wood care kit?

I used the wax just once after 6 months, and that was almost a year ago. They look perfectly fine and I'm avoiding using it further unless I think I really need to.

I should state though that I've never taken them outside of the house. Even though it's cold outside its still nice and cozy warm inside