[Face]

You should give the Hifiman HE-6 a whirl.  The Burson is borderline as far as being able to drive them, but they have a much cleaner bottom end than the HE-500's and IMO, the clamping is excellent...unless you have a head like Beetlejuice. 
 

 

[sluker]

Nice review, good read.
Thanks for taking the time to share.
The hifiman cans can easily be made to fit better (I have the same problem with all of the headphones you noted) with a temporary pad such as the Sennheiser HD650 foam pads. 
I would say don't give up on the HiFiman cans, I think if you try a properly amped HE-5LE or HE-6 you will be pleasantly surprised. You can still use the Adcom, but i would suggest trying the speaker tap method for the HE cans.
Great choice on the LCD-3, out of all the headphones I have heard the LCD-3's properly amped are still my favorite.
 
Oh and sorry for your wallet!

 

[Dubstep Girl]

nice review..
 
 
still debating on getting HE-500s
 
out of my headphones, i feel that the T1 and LCD-2 are my favorite ones too.

 

[brokenthumb]

I enjoyed reading the review as well.  Seems like a great way to try out headphones in your own system.

 

[Duckman]

Quote:

Duckman:
 
I used both my Adcom and the Burson (both jacks) to drive the T-1s, and neither amp seemed to struggle pushing the drivers.  Critical listening sound levels on my Adcom start at 9 on the clock for the T-1, and it gets VERY loud by 11,  The LCDs typically started at ~10 or 11, and got very loud by 1, but interestingly could get much louder than the T-1 before I felt pain.  Instead the band or orchestra just got closer, and closer, until it felt like I was going to be handed an instrument and told to keep up...
 
Lorspeaker:  If somebody sends me some Denons or Fostex -- or more intriguingly, some Stax -09s and an amp that can drive them -- to demo I'll "force myself" to listen to them, but I'm not sending CC any more money for demos right now. 
 
G in MD

 
I had no problem with volume either (with 160 driving the T1). It was the clarity and focus that improved dramatically with another amp.

 

[Gary in MD]

Duckman:
 
At some point in the future I am likely to start looking at amp upgrades, maybe the SPL, though it seems aimed at high impedance cans, and I have to drive LCDs.  Mjolnir is another possibility; however, I definitely want to wait on the Schiit until it has a track record and they have worked out any bugs (their intro hasn't exactly gone perfectly smoothly to date).  In the meantime my bucks will go to headphones.  The T-1s I have on right now sound really good with my Adcom, and the LCD-3s sounded good enough for me to part with my dollars, so an amp is a lower priority.  For now.  Until you folks start gushing about Mjolnir or some other new amp, and then I will probably start sliding down the slippery slope...
 
My LCD-3s will be here tomorrow.  I will be interested to hear how this pair compares to the demo units I had.  I have no idea how many hours the demos had on them, which might cause some difference, but here's hoping I'm getting the perfect pair...

 

[Duckman]

Burson Soloist would cover you well.

 

[realstar]

Great reviews. I found these impressions mirrored my own pretty closely. (excepting LCD-3 which I haven't heard/owned as of yet) I also tried most of these plus some others and the LCD-2 and T1 really stood out for me too.

 

[faverodefavero]

Seems the vogue now a days is rolled off treble, lots of dense, thick, bass and no real care for micro-detail (specially at high frequencies like chord plucking) and with smooth medium frequency. Just like some time ago you would see allot of "U-curved" FR headphones hyped with very recessed medium frequencies through the sound spectrum... Me? I just can't live without good dynamic treble, specially since I listen to lots of acoustic music, string trios/quartets, jazz and classic rock -- Which, with most tracks, are styles that "beg" (deserve/need) to be deeply explored for every little nice detail! For me, at least, that is.

 

[catscratch]

Actually I'd say it's quite the opposite. At least going by measurements a lot of new headphones with high-end aspirations (HD700, T1, etc) have elevated, sometimes peaky treble. The trend seems to be artificial detail and Audeze is going against that. Whenever you have a prevailing trend there's going to be a market niche in something that sounds different, and besides, peaky treble is just plain nasty.

 

[Lord Soth]

Fantastic review!

 
If you could also include STAX Earspeakers, this would be a complete comparison of the BEST cans out there!

 

[Face]

Quote:

Fantastic review!

 
If you could also include STAX Earspeakers, this would be a complete comparison of the BEST cans out there!

I agree, this thread should be renamed "Comparing almost the best of the best".

 

[KingStyles]

Nice write ups and welcome to headfi. I would love to see him compare the 007 to the lcd3.

 

[TnTMaN]

Many thanks for the well written review! I am planning on buying the Burson amp and also a high end can next week! Your review has helped me heaps!

 

[Gary in MD]

Folks:
 
I got my own new pair of LCD-3s the other day.  My first impression is that they have more high-end energy than the demo pair.  It could be that the rest of the spectrum will increase as the drivers break in, but I don't mind a bit of extra treble, which I thought was perhaps the only area that the demo LCD-3s needed a tiny bit more of in order to be perfect.  I'm currently listening to a rip of Chicago II in FLAC and even on this early 1970s analog (initially at least) recording I'm impressed with the Audeze's ability to make every instrument and voice sound 3-dimensional and real.  I still have the Beyers for another day or so, and will be comparing the two again over the weekend.
 
And for those who would like me to compare the various Stax models to the hardware I already reviewed, I am definitely willing to do it, if you will send me the hardware

.  The Cable Company told me they sold Stax, but had not included them in the lending library up until now because they took special amplification, etc., etc. etc.  That's pretty much what they told me about the HE-6's as well.  Otherwise I might have had 8 or 9 pairs of headphones in the comparison.  I was willing to deposit as much as the lowest cost set of headphones -- i.e., $700 for the HE-500s -- which meant that I could have had $14K in hardware here.  That probably would have been enough to cover the Stax and HE-6, but they were not in the boxes that showed up, so they were not in the comparison.  Sorry, but now that I've paid for the LCD-3s I won't be putting any more deposits down for a while, so the only way I can compare these cans is if somebody volunteers to send them to me, or wants to bring them to me in Maryland...