Oh well, it seems like I might be spending some money by the end of the summer. Excellent review and very nice read. Seriously convincing especially the comparison of the mids. I always (before doing some research couple of months ago) on LCD2 thought that dark headphones will automatically be "downgrade of mids" but a lot of people debunked that for me, which will probably (alongside with the plannar base) end up being the selling point for me. Anyway, awesome and very informative review. 

Good review PinkyPowers. These are serious headphones no matter which revision you have. 

Nice review, and agree with you that they are a good upgrade to the HD-600

Good review... I've had my LCD2 for a couple few years and despite the constant talk of the LCD3 being better or the Ether or the Oppe PM1, I am of the mind that with the durable build quality, these are end game headphones. Just replace pads every couple few years. I've got an LCD2 and an HD800 and consider my quest complete. Glad you found your way to them.

Excellent review, great-looking cable. A master of your craft.

I have the same 2 headphones as you Fed and I agree. If you have those two headphones you are golden, nothing else to buy on that end of the audio chain at least.

I too have both the HD600 and LCD-2 (.1s) and I agree. Mids are pretty much on par, but for pure musical pleasure the deep lows and smooth highs on the LCDs are just a delicious. On the other hand, the 600s are better for music production because they aren't as nice & smooth up top. 

Hey, those look familiar. Glad you like 'em.

As I own the 600s and LCD2s, I agree with your review.  Very nice writing and pictures!  Well done!

A great review, really enjoyed reading this information filled. Review.

LCD2 rev. 1 is even better.

Aaaaah, that good ol' LCD-2. Recognize almost everything you write about it (great and fun reading) and I only sold mine (which was a pre-fazor) because of the weight and skull crushing force of it. But it's still the best headphone I've heard so far. Mine scaled up (especially on treble, details and soundstage without loosing that superb lows) nicely with a Silver Dragon V3 Premium cable. Reading your review makes me miss them (again)

I had few years LCD2 rev 1 (one of the first versions). Headphones had quite a lot shortcomings. But also many positives. What I loved about them the most was nature that means vocals instruments everything sounded as whole coherence which I really loved and plus their atmosphere mids and this everything with nice clear background. Also love Audeze leather pads. But definitely it needed some nice neutral quality clear dac/amp for them to compensate their darker/richer character.

I had a similar emotional experience upgrading from the hd650 to the LCD-XC. Good to hear a similar success story! And lovely cable you got there!

So, balanced copper OCC cable... increased in transparency, separation, and soundstage?
 
That's where I stopped reading. The minute one ignores science a whole range of human delusions start clouding our judgment. And so many words and so much eloquence is then wasted on describing those delusions. 

It's not the OCC copper I attribute those changes to, but the balanced output on the NFB-28. On a hardware/scientific level XLR is setup very differently than SE (on the NFB-28).

MorrisL just described the atheists view of religion!

If you are in fact up in arms over my comparison of Balanced and Singled-ended, then it is you who have ignored science in support of a bias. On the two devices I mentioned--I can't speak on others--the NFB-28 and AK120ii have Balanced outputs that use an entirely different DAC and Amp architecture than than their single-ended counterparts. There is even a significant increase in voltage, which of course can be measured.

They sound different. They sound better.

I don't believe I am biased on this. The minute there is any evidence presented here (other than personal anecdotes) showing how a balanced connection can have any bearing whatsoever on soundstage and separation (transparency is too vague of a characteristic to argue about), I will immediately admit my ignorance on the topic and will apologize for unnecessarily cluttering this comment page.

Soundstage and separation are also nebulous, as there is no way to measure them beyond "how they sound to my ears", and very often contradicted by someone else's perception.

And whether you're right or wrong, this dialog still unnecessarily clutters my comment section.