I just noticed Audeze mention the LCD-4 as "sold out / no longer available" on their website and advice to go for LCD-4z or LCD-5 instead. Did they stop the production of our beloved LCD-4? If that's the case, then this is a mourning day. These headphones are so unique and wonderful. Never liked...

Thanks Hifi59 for your answer! Sounds like a good upgrade but I'm not sure I'd like to get more "bite" from my LCD-4, I love their smooth and relaxed sound. I listen to them without any EQ. I'd probably take a try if there was a swapping system like with the Empyrean or the Utopia, but with the...

Hi, Can you develop about the 2021 pads? Did you swap your original pads for them? If the answer is yes, could you tell what the changes are? Do we have some curves/measurements? Fan of the LCD-4 here, bought mine in 2017 and still one of my favourite headphones. Very fond of their warm and...

After more than three years of use I discovered something that I think may be useful to share with you: When used with a McIntosh amplifier, the background noise clearly noticeable with sensitive headphones from the IESL (and sadly with any amplifier) can be massively reduced by using the 4 ohms...

I noticed the noise issue with several amplifiers, not only my McIntosh. Plus, the sound of the noise changes according to the impedance setting. With the 16 ohms setting, it's snome kind of "shhhhhhshhhh" noise so it's with this setting that I perceive it as the less disturbing. This problem...

Thanks for your answer, not sure I think this is not what I was talking about. Maybe you don't know, but McIntosh amplifiers have on their back several speaker outputs. You can have 8, 6 and 4 ohms outputs. So, if you have a 4 ohms speakers, it's apparently better to chose the 4 ohms output on...

Hi, I've been using my IESL with my McIntosh MA6600 integrated amp for more than one year, but recently I've been wondering... Is it the best thing to connect it to the 8 ohms plugs on the back of the amp? My loudspeakers are 8 ohms, but when the IESL is turned on, what load is the amp seeing...

Same problem as Panthalassa. I wrote an e-mail to Ifi, they replied me that they didn't know the problem, would talk to the tech staff and come back to me. It was about two months ago, never got another reply. The background noise varies according to the impedance selected, and to the position...

Hi, I was wondering one thing and didn't find the answer: what is the impedance of the XLR 4 pins output ? From what I understood after reading the user manual, the impedance setting on the IESL allows to change the impedance "seen" by the amplifier connected to the IESL, but it's not related...

No, you need an external amplifier to use it.

I was wondering what was the output power of the XLR 4 pins output of the IESL (don't know if this applies for estats) ? On most of the headphone amplifiers, we know what is the power of the headphone output (often something like a fraction of a watt, sometimes several watts). Is this power...

I think it mainly depends on what amplifier you are going to use with the iESL. My McIntosh MA6600 + little FX Audio tube preamp gives a better result than my 727. Same thing with my Viva Egoista 845. I don't think I'm losing some details. Well, my best results for my SR-007 and SR-009 are my...

The IESL provides a great sound for planars/dynamic headphones, but I have to warn you: it also has a high probability to provide you some background noise. I tested it with my two preamps - Pass Labs X0.2 (solid state) and McIntosh C2300 (tubes) + my Coda CX monoblocks and I got some background...

I don't think it's a matter of better source and dac. The SR-009 is indeed a quite bright headphone and it needs to receive some little warmish/soft sound... In this case it doesn't matter if this comes from a very high end source and dac or from an entry-level gear. You can find some very high...

I think it's possible to make the SR-009 sound not too bright with the Carbon, if you have the right cables - power and xlr. The Carbon is surpringly quite sensitive to the power cable and the results may differ very much. In this case you get the very fast bass power of solid state amps which...