[Edwood]

 
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Ed, Sorry for blowing up, its all very frustrating though and there were many posts laying blame. I for one am not immune to mistake.
 
Ken
 

No worries, Ken.  I think we're finally closing on clearing up the confusion.  You know what they say about assumptions.  You make an Ass of U and some guy named Umptions. 

 
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Look, I listened to both pair, stock and the ALO cabled pair on the new Cavalli amp. I definitely preferred the stock pair to the ALO cabled pair. Not sure what was the cause of the difference, but it was indeed noticeable. So Ed is not alone.

FWIW, it looks like there is very little difference in the cables as measured.  As I stated before, I only listened to the ALO cabled LCD-2.  I saw that Tyll was measuring the stock cabled LCD-2.  And now Tyll posted the results here: http://sites.google.com/a/headphonehobbylab.org/filehost/home/files/CanJam2010HeadphoneMeasurements.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
 
As you can see, there isn't a huge difference between the different LCD-2 measurements.  So whatever the differences in cables may be, they are not those that can be measured to a great degree.  I only take measurements with a grain of salt to a certain extent.  And I take Meet listening impressions with a huge rock of salt.  I don't trust meet impressions for such fine comparisons as cables, especially.  Too little time, too much distractions, too much ambient noise.
 
-Ed

 

[monsieurguzel]

I wouldn't really trust anybody's opinion of the ALO recable vs stock cable from Canjam. Wiring is always the last few percent of sound refinement, and in my eyes Canjam was way too loud with too much going on for anybody to discern such a difference. Change of equipment and source was probably more a cause of the different sounding LCD-2 headphones.

What I admired about Ken Ball and his cables from speaking to him is that he doesn't do any weird voodoo to his cables and what you get is just one of the highest quality copper cables you can find on the market nowadays in any price bracket. Thus the dumb comments of the cable sounding worse than the stock are just empty talking and bashing for no good reason.

 

[charliex]

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I think they will mail you when your pair is ready to ship (if you said you want to buy).
 

 

Definitely - I asked if a down payment was needed, and basically got a reply that I would receive an email when my pair is ready in about a month.

 

[charliex]

Question - after putting the majority of my wallet into Stax gear lately, I simply don't have the funds nor interest at the moment in getting yet another amp.
Sowould my simple LIttle Dot Mk III be sufficient to drive the LCD-2 orthos I have on order?  Is there any way to use Stax amps with the LCD-2?

 

[Audeze]

 

 There seem to be some lingering questions about the measurements done at CanJam'10 regarding the phase response. We had 3 headphones at the show
and all three were measured. The measurements for the LCD-2 were quite stunning.
  The frequency response, the square wave @ 30 hz and the total harmonic distortion curves are quite amazing. Even at 100 dB the THD + Noise is extremely
low. And most importantly all our graphs are very consistent, validating our production processes that match responses within +- 0.5 dB.
There were some questions raised about the phase response. From our analysis, there is absolutely nothing wrong with either the headphone or the cables
that were used. The phase response curve is pretty normal and our findings below are consistent with the measurement of other headphones.
 
Conclusion:
1. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either the headphones or the cables that were tested at CanJam. This is substantiated by our own testing with the
dummy head on the very same headphone and cables.
2. Almost all the graphs show the phase of the headphones centered around -180 degrees.
 
Explanation :
From the Graphs -
When people saw the graphs of the LCD-2 at the show, someone mentioned it was -180 degrees out of phase. Now looking at all the graphs, we can see that
almost all of them are centered around -180 degrees. (Please check Tyll's graphs for Audio Technica AD200, Grado HS1, Senheiser HD201, HD800 etc). Here
is the HD 800 phase graph and one of the LCD2 graph - side by side.
 

 
 
 
 A few of them Audio Technica L3000, HE-5 are the only ones that we can see that are centered around 0. The rest of the are all centered around -180. From
looking at all the graphs, it seems fairly obvious to us that the measuring system or some other equipment in the pipeline is introducing this.
From our own testing -
We take great pride in our headphones accuracy. Every single headphone we make undergoes a battery of tests to ensure their performance is very close to
each other. From the graphs you can see how close each one is to the performance of the other LCD-2s. 
 So we took the headphones from the show (same cables that were used) and tested them. In our calibrated measurement system, we can see no phase shifts.
The phase is centered around Zero with some drift on either side (which will be there in almost every headphone). You can see the graph of the LCD-2 measurements here. The scale on the left side of the graph is the frequency and the right side is the phase. This is at a much higher resolution than Tyll's graphs, so you can see some more detail.
 
 

 
 
 
Phase shift -
Phase shift is the difference in phase between the input signal and the output signal. With specific reference to headphones, if we apply a positive signal, the
diaphragm moves towards the ear. The delay between the input signal and the diaphragm movement is the phase shift. 
 
The microphone which picks up the audio signal for measurement should also be calibrated so that, when the diaphragm on the headphone moves forward,
the microphone diaphragm moves backward. The amplifiers and other equipment in the chain should all be calibrated so that they dont introduce any phase
shifts.
 

 
 
Phase Difference -
When you apply a positive signal to both ears, both the diaragms should move towards the ears. If one of them moves towards and the other moves away,
this would mean, the two ears are out of phase.
 
 
 
We hope this clears up any confusion.
 
A very big thank you to Tyll for trucking all of his equipment to take measurements for all of us.
Thank you Tyll!
 
 

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Question - after putting the majority of my wallet into Stax gear lately, I simply don't have the funds nor interest at the moment in getting yet another amp.
Sowould my simple LIttle Dot Mk III be sufficient to drive the LCD-2 orthos I have on order?  Is there any way to use Stax amps with the LCD-2?

Can't answer the LD MkIII question, but I was actually thinking about your last question earlier today and in order to do so you would need drop down transformers and risk greatly multiplying the available current to levels that may not be good for the LCD-2s, even assuming good regulation in the transformer.  So that said, why not go the other way?  Sell the Stax amp and invest in a great amp that can easily run the Woo Energizer or DIY your own SRD7.  My iron for my DIY SRD7 was about $190 for the pair, add $50 or so for a bias supply board, a chassis, and misc. bits that would add up to about $100, so for $350-$400 you can make a great SRD7 that will be full bandwidth and with a good amp kicking out 18V+ on the rails, you can swing some nice volts into the Stax.  The Woo Energizer will be in the $500-$600 range and will be available with both Normal and Pro bias in the same unit according to Jack's son at CJ. Heck, I liked the Woo chassis so much, I'm almost tempted to buy one and see if I can shoe-horn in my big step-up transformers. 

  Each one is about 3-1/2" or 90mm cubed though, so they won't fit...

 

[kwkarth]

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Ed..don't want to get into a back and forth thing with you here..
 
The LCD-2 isn't just any other headphone in my view. It is hella resolving and quite possible that you did hear it only on that. 
 
I have heard speaker systems going into thousands of $$, when only one or two that are exceptional could show phase shift in the electronics when they were being swapped about. 
 
Lets just get past this now shall we..at least until proven one way or the other.

OK, everything has been proven now.  Did all you guys read Audeze's post?  You might learn something if you do read it, it's very informative!
 
Cheers,
k
 

 

[gbacic]

Is the LCD-2 going to be a limited production item? Thinking of replacing my HD650's with a pair and then saving up for a WA6SE later on.

 

[smeggy]

Big thanks to everyone involved and to Audeze for making an absolute cracker of a headphone. I am wearing them right now and they truly are excellent.
 

 

[peanuthead]

Did anyone have a chance to listen to these on Headamp GS-1 at CanJam?

 

[tuckers]

I got my pair today.  Very nice box and packaging.  I am not a headphone fetishist, but these do look classy, I like the hand crafted look better than something like the HD800.
 
I am running them in with just the headphone out of the Amarra Model 4 DAC, which is just passable sonically.  Later tonight I will dust off my killer amp and give it a whack.
 
It is kind of tight on the head, but it's ok.  I am trying to think of it as being snuggled between the thighs of a beautiful lady
 
They do sound a bit dark and closed in (kind of HD650ish), but they are fresh out of the box and need time to open up. The bass impresses, sounding very free of the cans and going down deep.  Detail is good too.
 
Now to find the perfect portable amp for these babies.  Ideas?

 

[TheWuss]

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Is the LCD-2 going to be a limited production item?

yeah.  what he asked. 

 

[smeggy]

I've given mine a blast with the high power mini3 and it does a good job with them.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

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Big thanks to everyone involved and to Audeze for making an absolute cracker of a headphone. I am wearing them right now and they truly are excellent.
 

I'm green with envy Smeggy, but glad you're happy! 

 

 

[Nakattack]

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Now to find the perfect portable amp for these babies.  Ideas?

Surely you jest, sir.