[Justin_Time]

Long-time LCD-2 owner here (version 1).  7500 posts into this thread and I'm going back to page 1 from Skylab.  Just picked up a used Leben CS300.  All I have to say is: Oh sweet lord, the music!


 


I've played the LCD-2 through a bunch of headphone amps, including a balanced Cavalli EHHA (strong tight sound, very precise) and recently from the headphone out on my Benchmark-2 Dac (very clinical, a touch fatiguing).  The temptation with the LCD-2 is to want to analyze the music.


 


Now listening to the Benchmark feeding the Leben and with great performances all I hear is music. All the detail is there, but instead of hearing how separate and distinct all the instruments are, I hear how they all fit together and how great the musical phrasing is.


 


A few highlights:


 


Skip, Hop, and Wobble (by Jerry Douglas, Russ Barenberg, & Edgar Meyer) - one of my all-time favorite recordings by 3 of the greatest studio musicians out there.  Gorgeous, tasty phrasing all day. You can see the three of them sitting there jamming


 


Let It Bleed (Rolling Stones) - layers and layers of sound. The groove is completely infectious


 


Live at Ronnie Scott's (Jeff Beck) - wow. Sitting in the front row for this incredible ensemble performance


 


A Love Supreme (John Coltrane) - always loved this performance, but holy crap! Pushed play on this and didn't notice anything else for the next 35 minutes


 


The First Time (Roberta Flack) - one of the best written songs ever. Put the LCD-2's on my wife to listen to this and she just closed her eyes and smiled for the whole song


 


 


 


So, thanks Skylab. Short of some tube rolling, I'm not going to touch a thing with this setup.  Just sit and listen to great music.  Who needs sleep anyway.

 


Stringgz,

Thank you for sharing you experience with us. Very useful information.

I have owned and listened to many, many amps with the LCD2/3 and would hate to try another one unless it is a must-have killer amp.

Could you compare the sound of the LCD2/3 - Leben combination with the sound of the LCD2/3 driven by some of the following amps that I have owned and whose sound I am intimately familiar with:

Burson soloist
Bryston BHA-1
Schiit Mjolnir
Vioelectric V181or V200
GS-X Mk2
Bakoon HPA-21
Apex Peak/volcano
Eddie Current Super 7
RWA Corvina or Bellina
Cavalli Liquid Fire
Woo WA5-LE or Woo WA5
EAR HP4

To my ears, so far the best amps for the LCD2/3 (and the HE-6) are GS-X Mk2 and the Bakoon HPA-21 for SS design and the Woo WA5-LE (or WA5) and the EAR HP4 for tube/hybrid design.

Cheers,

Justin Time (ST)

 

[willmax]

  Hi guys, I just acquired a LCD2.2 from a fellow head-fier. Now I tell you it is a bit daunting

 to have to plow through 500 pages of amp recommendation for the LCD2
Can someone please tell me/ or point me to the right post about what is the consensus on the best sub $500 (new) $400 (used) amp or DAC/amp combo for the LCD2.2?


 
I've been thinking about Yulong D100 MKII, Asus Xonar E1, Asgard 2, Qinpu A-6000 mkii.

 

 
Any help would be appreciated. 

Cheers

 
Edit: Forgot to mention, I'm mainly after solid state, Qinpu only exception above.

^ Any more opinions on the above, anyone?

 

[TontonJoK]

Schiit Mjolnir or Violectric V200 used but it's closer to 600 $ than 500

If you want to enhance the highs then get schiit or a warm sound then the Violectric

 

[MRC001]

  The postman brought my Corda Jazz today. I took a brief break from sonic heaven to add my thoughts to the Corda Jazz reviews already on this site. I can definitely recommend the Corda Jazz amp as a good match for the LCD-2.
http://www.head-fi.org/products/meier-audio-corda-jazz/reviews/11023

I finally got around to measuring the Jazz. It was a bit tricky to measure due to its balanced active ground output stage. It's one of the cleanest amps I've ever measured, which was no surprise given how great it sounds subjectively.
http://mclements.net/Mike/mrc-blog/blog-140615.html
If you want to hear what the actual recording sounds like without any coloration or distortion, it's hard to image whether "better performance" has any real meaning in practical terms. So long as you keep the volume knob below the 3:00 position, the Jazz has no measurable or audible flaws, either subjectively or objectively. I'm not sure if it has the oomph to drive really inefficient headphones like the HE-6, but for the 99% of other headphones in the world, including my LCD-2 rev 3, it would be hard to beat at any price.

 

[Skydog71]

I have a RWA bellina HPA and love it.  Nice because you can do a little tube rolling and it is portable from room to room.

 

[willmax]

Schiit Mjolnir or Violectric V200 used but it's closer to 600 $ than 500

If you want to enhance the highs then get schiit or a warm sound then the Violectric

Thanks, I'm sure those are great amps - highly praised here too, unfortunately they are way over my budget even if in used condition.
After a bit more research now I'm leaning towards either Audio GD NFB-15 or Matrix M-Stage amp. Both seem to deliver great sound for buck and also capable to be used not only with the LCD2 but my other cans as well.

 

[Megalomaniak]

 
Thanks, I'm sure those are great amps - highly praised here too, unfortunately they are way over my budget even if in used condition.
After a bit more research now I'm leaning towards either Audio GD NFB-15 or Matrix M-Stage amp. Both seem to deliver great sound for buck and also capable to be used not only with the LCD2 but my other cans as well.

 
If you can get it cheap there in Aus, the Asgard 2 from Schiit is a ver good Amp, or the Lyr. Also the Compass 2 from AudioGD.
 
I drive my LCD-2s out of a Matrix M-Stage and it sounds good, with a better amp you get more slam and bass/sub-bass, but for the price you cant get better. Also I like it with the HD6X0, Beyer DTs and the Senn HD800s.
 
Im waiting for a Violectric V281 tho

 

[willmax]

   
If you can get it cheap there in Aus, the Asgard 2 from Schiit is a ver good Amp, or the Lyr. Also the Compass 2 from AudioGD.
 
I drive my LCD-2s out of a Matrix M-Stage and it sounds good, with a better amp you get more slam and bass/sub-bass, but for the price you cant get better. Also I like it with the HD6X0, Beyer DTs and the Senn HD800s.
 
Im waiting for a Violectric V281 tho

Thanks for your impression, we even have a very similar headphone line-up by the looks of it

 

[Sound Eq]

i recently bought a used well maintained audeze lcd2 rev2, and i noticed in the low end frequencies that sometimes the sound is like rumbles or distorts when there is extra bass, I am waiting for my chord hugo to arrive so right now I am using just the ifi ican nano as an amp connected to fiio 18 as dac.
 
so for example if i play the song magic by coldplay which has a lot of low end notes i feel something is not right in the low end, is that because i am using a bad dac and amp, and things will improve with chord hugo or is the audeze lcd2 rev2 not good in playing heavy bass music

 

[Megalomaniak]

  i recently bought a used well maintained audeze lcd2 rev2, and i noticed in the low end frequencies that sometimes the sound is like rumbles or distorts when there is extra bass, I am waiting for my chord hugo to arrive so right now I am using just the ifi ican nano as an amp connected to fiio 18 as dac.
 
so for example if i play the song magic by coldplay which has a lot of low end notes i feel something is not right in the low end, is that because i am using a bad dac and amp, and things will improve with chord hugo or is the audeze lcd2 rev2 not good in playing heavy bass music

 
Coldplay has some of the worst recording Ive ever heard, so im pretty sure the problem comes from the lack of detail, high distorsion of the recording and all the compressing crap.
 
Im listening to it right now from youtube and sounds like crap (no offense)
 
Try these for bass quality:
 

 
Thats clean electronic bass.
 
Some clean acoustics bass:
 

 
Electronic sub-bass (volume up please!)
 
 

 

[DarrenLays]

  i recently bought a used well maintained audeze lcd2 rev2, and i noticed in the low end frequencies that sometimes the sound is like rumbles or distorts when there is extra bass, I am waiting for my chord hugo to arrive so right now I am using just the ifi ican nano as an amp connected to fiio 18 as dac.
 
so for example if i play the song magic by coldplay which has a lot of low end notes i feel something is not right in the low end, is that because i am using a bad dac and amp, and things will improve with chord hugo or is the audeze lcd2 rev2 not good in playing heavy bass music

 
 
I figured I'd give it a listen and compare, I'll listen to it on spotify premium with LCD-2 rev 3 with o2+odac as my source+amp:
 
 
The bass has quite a bit of "thump thump" and impact, you definitely notice it's there, I don't notice any rumbles or distorts.
 
 
What source are you listening to the song on?  Youtube, pandora, itunes, spotify, something else perhaps?  

 

[Sound Eq]

   
 
I figured I'd give it a listen and compare, I'll listen to it on spotify premium with LCD-2 rev 3 with o2+odac as my source+amp:
 
 
The bass has quite a bit of "thump thump" and impact, you definitely notice it's there, I don't notice any rumbles or distorts.
 
 
What source are you listening to the song on?  Youtube, pandora, itunes, spotify, something else perhaps?  

i have both in flac and mp3
 
its not distortion its as if the bass in not hitting right , i can't describe it good, its thump thump with rattling  i will check when my chord hugo arrives as the fiio18 as a dac has high mid bass, and sometimes when i use bass boost on fiio18 that what happens the rattling thump thump bass

 

[DarrenLays]

  i have both in flac and mp3
 
its not distortion its as if the bass in not hitting right , i can't describe it good, its thump thump with rattling  i will check when my chord hugo arrives as the fiio18 as a dac has high mid bass, and sometimes when i use bass boost on fiio18 that what happens the rattling thump thump bass

 
 
Hmmph, yes definitely try it with the hugo first, because mine doesn't have a rattling noise. (Atleast not that I can notice)

 

[Sound Eq]

   
Coldplay has some of the worst recording Ive ever heard, so im pretty sure the problem comes from the lack of detail, high distorsion of the recording and all the compressing crap.
 
Im listening to it right now from youtube and sounds like crap (no offense)
 
Try these for bass quality:
 

 
Thats clean electronic bass.
 
Some clean acoustics bass:
 

 
Electronic sub-bass (volume up please!)
 
 

I will try those at home, I totally agree their recording quality is so bad, I really cant figure it out how come artists don't care about their quality recordings and accept what record companies push out.
 
its so bad as most of the music genres I like ( synthpop, progressive rock, metal ) most suck in quality, and really sometimes if i like a band and their quality recordings suck then I stop listening to them completely, but many music gems are suffering from bad recording.
 
One band I started to really dislike is ( Hurts )  especially their latest album ( exile ) their first song in the album is maybe the worst ever recoded quality ever.
 
What a shame

 

[Megalomaniak]

 
I will try those at home, I totally agree their recording quality is so bad, I really cant figure it out how come artists don't care about their quality recordings and accept what record companies push out.
 
its so bad as most of the music genres I like ( synthpop, progressive rock, metal ) most suck in quality, and really sometimes if i like a band and their quality recordings suck then I stop listening to them completely, but many music gems are suffering from bad recording.
 
One band I started to really dislike is ( Hurts )  especially their latest album ( exile ) their first song in the album is maybe the worst ever recoded quality ever.
 
What a shame

Yeah, neither I can. This is a common topic around my audio-hobby friends, with the technology we have nowadays, that many youtubers can compose and record very nice songs/covers with just one computer and a couple thousand dollars midi-mixer, why the hell the recording studios have such bad quality on their releases.
 
I dont get it, drives me nuts.