In the world of Head-Fi, or any-Fi, there is usually a big gap: between the impatience of members to get something NOW, and the more-often-than-not long waiting periods to get that something from the manufacturer... When I ordered my LCD-XC, I had already settled for the long haul, again.
One nice thing about SoCal is this: come home from work late one evening and find a Fedex shipping from Audeze, then the next day hold your shiny new toy in hand, or even better:
And for good measure, here's the most succinct unboxing around here:
And that's all folks: a couple of pamphlets, some pretty cool stickers, in an envelope, a bag with cables and wood care oil, and the headphones (with a nifty spacer, unlike the one I had to make for my LCD-3) No frequency chart though, for expedience probably and also probably generally to avoid throwing more fuel on some potential fires ^_^;;
I bought them sight unseen (or rather sound unheard) because I always told myself if Audeze EVER releases a closed headphone...
After a recent absence from my Head-Fi gear, and coming back to it, there still is no contest for me with all the gear I've heard: nothing I love more than my (wide-open) LCD-3 fed by my WA-22 with the occasional variation of tube flavoring (fed in turn by my M-DAC, balanced of course) I guess for open headphones there might be some experimentation left (though I doubt I'd much like the brightness of the HD800, and Stax' 009 (and the Abyss) are priced beyond good and evil for my finances...)
For closed headphones, I've loved the tone of my slightly modded AT-W3000ANVs, and eventually the Fostex TH900 took over as my favourite, after a somewhat cool start. But now, after even just a brief listen, I can say already that for me it's pretty much a done deal: the LCD-XC is it, it's closed & still has the Audeze sound! Audio bliss.
Yes, it does have a different signature than the LCD-3, but it's still all there, including the bass (on the same WA-22 setup I listened to just last night) It is definitely brighter, but still keeps sibilant records in check as well as can be expected, and more importantly it's pretty even throughout, without a weird spike like the T1, or the Ed8 to a lesser extent, or the u-shaped increase of the TH900 (which is admittedly still well-managed) It is also well within tube-adjustability.
As far as comfort goes: it's Audeze, either it feels comfortable to you or it doesn't, I've always been fine, maybe for not being of scrawny neckage -_-;;. Though one issue I had with the LCD-3 pads was the rather pronounced suction effect, which was so uncomfortable to me that I added a tiny anti-suction/pressure-equalization mod to it. The texture of the new pads seems to be very slightly rougher, so interestingly enough I have not experienced the same issue yet.
UPDATE: Isolation: very good indeed, better than most closed cans I have, except maybe the HP100 or the Ed8.
These are first impressions of course, and IMHO always applies. I'll certainly spend some quality time with these, and to that: Yay! (even in light of my handle...)