[MrGreen]

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I'm going to give up harping on about this now.  I just hope you get to try some very high-end headphone rigs some day (or not maybe, as the experience can be seriously damaging to your wallet).

I have some in the mail (should be here in a few days now). While not exactly high-end by head-fi standards it is certainly sounds better than any dynamic rig I've had the pleasure of hearing through even higher end amps. (WA22 even though im not a fan of the measurements) - even when I actually tested it through what appears to not be the most reputable amp around
 
You've not made mention of people with better gear than I who have similar thoughts to myself.
 
Edit: Thanks redbull but i'll never be interested in spending money to improve a headphone i dont really like that much

 

[jamato8]

Listening to "Spike" from Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers . . The Live Anthology. . . great music and Fuuuunnnn. It throws a nice wide soundstage. The live audience is natural and gives a feeling of the venue and then fade into the next song with "Anyway you Want It",.. . you can feel the pulse and rhythm of the moment. There is plenty of transparency and hall sound to engross . . . and then the next song . . . Great stuff. 
 
what amazes me about these phones, no matter what I push at them, I can not get them tangled up in the sound. They just deliver clean, articulate sound with authority.
 
The Doors live at Pittsburg Civic Arena "Light my Fire", the crowd screams when they start. Crank it up and it is like being there. The great sound gave me goosebumps. 

 

[Currawong]

 
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I'm going to give up harping on about this now.  I just hope you get to try some very high-end headphone rigs some day (or not maybe, as the experience can be seriously damaging to your wallet).

I have some in the mail (should be here in a few days now). While not exactly high-end by head-fi standards it is certainly sounds better than any dynamic rig I've had the pleasure of hearing through even higher end amps. (WA22 even though im not a fan of the measurements) - even when I actually tested it through what appears to not be the most reputable amp around
 
You've not made mention of people with better gear than I who have similar thoughts to myself.

 
I haven't ever tried their gear!

 

 

[RedBull]

 
Quote:

 
I have some in the mail (should be here in a few days now). While not exactly high-end by head-fi standards it is certainly sounds better than any dynamic rig I've had the pleasure of hearing through even higher end amps. (WA22 even though im not a fan of the measurements) - even when I actually tested it through what appears to not be the most reputable amp around

Tube amp! hope this can get the high out of LCD-2, but I swear it won't make LCD-2 to sound like HD800 

 

[vrln]

I was asked to clarify what I meant with the "limbo soundstage" and why I want to put a preamp between the active speakers. Preamp is because of remote control volume (and relay based discrete volume selection in general) selection, and as it´s an ACSS one the damage to the signal isn´t as huge as with a conventional design.
 
As for the limbo soundstage. I think the LCD-2 on certain records have an ok soundstage. Not huge, but not small either. It depends a lot on the recording. Maybe it´s because they are neutral enough to show how the soundstage is supposed to be instead of artificially producing a large one for every record? I don´t know. Then again on studio monitors these records have a good soundstage, and they are supposed to be very neutral in a nearfield setup. But on many recordings, the soundstage is a mix between the IEM "all inside the head" and the higher end dynamic (especially angled drivers) soundstage that floats in front of you outside your head. It´s just a personal preferance that I prefer either a fully IEM-like presentation or something that´s going for the full (as close as possible) speaker sensation.
 
This week I´ll be getting my new active monitors so headphones won´t stay a priority for me any longer, so I might end up selling the LCD-2. Maybe I´ll try a future HD 750 or K1000, who knows... It´s hard to justify the investment in the LCD-2 for me, as they aren´t my prime source. They do many things very well though, especially the bass performance is fantastic and on a completely different level than on the DT 880´s, but without neutral highs (then again that often leads to sibilance destroying the whole headphone sensation) it leads to a sound signature I can imagine some have issues with (I do, but I still prefer it to the HD 800 because of its sibilance issues). If someone is inside the EU and wants to buy an LCD-2, feel free to message me (would consider shipping outside the EU as well)

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

As for the limbo soundstage. I think the LCD-2 on certain records have an ok soundstage. Not huge, but not small either. It depends a lot on the recording. Maybe it´s because they are neutral enough to show how the soundstage is supposed to be instead of artificially producing a large one for every record? I don´t know. Then again on studio monitors these records have a good soundstage, and they are supposed to be very neutral in a nearfield setup. But on many recordings, the soundstage is a mix between the IEM "all inside the head" and the higher end dynamic (especially angled drivers) soundstage that floats in front of you outside your head. It´s just a personal preferance that I prefer either a fully IEM-like presentation or something that´s going for the full (as close as possible) speaker sensation.
 

Thanks for clarifying. At first I thought you have issues with positioning judging from your choice of words but I guess I was mistaken. I have no problem with the LCD2's soundstage as it reminds me a lot of Sony R10 or Stax Omega2 MK1/MK2 in a sense that the size is not big but everything is precisely defined and you can pin-point where is where. The HD800 has a hugeeeee lateral width which I admit is not correct per se but somehow it works exceedingly well with classical orchestra but perhaps not so well with everything else. 
 
I've heard some impressions that the Phoenix is soft-sounding in the treble region and this may not synergize with the LCD2. Currawong seems to like this combination though so I could be wrong as I haven't heard the unit myself. I wish I could compare it with the β22 someday. 

 

[vrln]

That Phoenix is soft @ treble originally came from Skylabs review, but I have to say I don´t really agree with him. There´s nothing soft with a HD 800 on that amp I might come across as being too critical though, overall LCD-2 is good, but I just don´t think it´s as good as the hype suggests. The weight is a bit too much for me too, even though it is something I could live with. Out of the headphones I´ve tried, for now the LCD-2 is the optimal headphone for me, but it´s not the end point I expected it to be. That said, active monitors have taken the end point role for me, so I´m not as critical with headphones so I can affort to take the risk and sell the LCD-2 for the unsure waters of future gear (K1000 revival, new Sennheiser gear from CES).
 
I need to buy the Phil Collins album with "In the air tonight" - that I could imagine is quite the showcase song for the LCD-2!

 

[Frank I]

Vrin I must say I too enjoy near field monitors. I have added Omega super 5 monitors but the LCD2 sound so good for that quiet time when the wife and kids do not want to hear the music. The Taboo has taken them up to another level. I also find them more comfortable than my T1 because of the big cups and pads. The weight is evenly distributed but my T1 after a couple hours start hurting my ears. I can listen to the LCD2 for hours. The treble is actually pretty good not as extended as my T1 but good . Bass and vocals is unequalled by any other can I have heard. Sound stage on the CSP-2 Taboo combo tube amps is wider than it was on the CSP-2 alone. I have enjoyed the LCD2 from day one and for the money they really are in the same class as all the other high end cans. The nice thing is that the monitors are now part of my headphone rig thanks to the Decware Taboo which was custom made with a headphone jack in the front for the LCD2 and any other power hungry headphone I may add in the future.

 

[MrGreen]

Quote:

You originally said that you found the mids to be congested in the LCD-2s, which is not something I experienced. As I've gone through a reasonable amount of gear, I thought that there may be a possibility that it was the result of something other than the headphones.

 
Not sure if it bothers you, but my test track for that kind of stuff is Maia by Pleiadians (I mentioned it earlier in the thread), which you are free to try out (regardless of how much you may hate it ). Perceived congestion aside, I think it's pretty obvious that the LCD-2 doesn't match my taste for this genre (which, along with ambient takes up a lot of my time). I found the LCD-2 very good for classical and jazz (my other mainstays), but preferred the HD800 for those genres. You don't have any headphones I've owned and enjoyed thoroughly, but I think the RE0 might be decent at conveying some personal taste in the are for these genres. I actually believe these genres are the hardest to get "right" or "good enough" because they often rely on technical aspects of sound reproduction - and I usually find a short coming in a headphone somewhere in this regard. Classical and Jazz, by contrast are less about the "sound" and more about the notes played and how they are played. IMO anyway (not sure how many people agree with the 'notes played' comment - but maybe there's some other music theory-heavy members here)

FWIW also, the HD800 was an impressive sound on the above track but jesus that treble spike was actually physically painful (and usually I just found it irritating). There was like, a sound like hitting two marbles together which was really accentuated with them that was just awful to listen to. I'm not sure if anyone who was at the meet where I first heard the HD800 remembers but I said it sounded incredible (it was my first taste of the high end, I suppose), but I would actually flinch every time that sound was there.
 
While we're on the subject of music, I actually really enjoyed the LCD-2 on stuff like Dream Fighter by Perfume (LOL), and to a lesser extent the first track of Carbon Based Lifeform's Hydroponic Garden ("Central Plains"). The bass on each of these was sublime and very true to source IMO. They also did an interesting job of the low end in BT "The other side" (from This Binary Universe). But I think the ER4S and stax (kill me now!) does an even better job of presenting the bass on the carbon based lifeforms example (not so on the BT example for the ER4)
 
I'm talking about music I think most head-fiers would hate, though of course.
 
Other test tracks I use (vocal presence) is Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice as well as Dorset Perception by Shpongle (treble bite, vocal separation, soundstage, how well it responds to jittery sounds (when the vocals start and stop a lot).
 
Maybe you'll get a better sense of what I hear with my gear and my music if you listen to the above. Then again, maybe not
 
PS it always annoys me that people ask about gear before they ask about music. Music is very easy to listen to - maybe you'll actually find that the music in question is responsible for the observations rather than the gear. Of course, maybe not.

 

[vrln]

I always thought Shpongle & co are pretty standard demo material? It´s the best to try out driver speed among other things if you ask me. Very good music too! The production values are unbelievably high...

 

[subtle]

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Maybe these people just don't like the headphone.
 

Maybe these people are just contrarians and enjoy the attention they get from being one of the few elitist outspoken individuals trying to enlighten the blind sheep?

 
You should try making a post that contains information rather than insults for once. "Oh noes, people don't like something I do! And they have technical data to support their opinion! IMPOSSIBLE"
 

Insults??  Technical data?  I see none.  I was simply stating the obvious.

 

[jax]

 
Quote:

Quote:

You originally said that you found the mids to be congested in the LCD-2s, which is not something I experienced. As I've gone through a reasonable amount of gear, I thought that there may be a possibility that it was the result of something other than the headphones.

 
Not sure if it bothers you, but my test track for that kind of stuff is Maia by Pleiadians (I mentioned it earlier in the thread), which you are free to try out (regardless of how much you may hate it ). Perceived congestion aside, I think it's pretty obvious that the LCD-2 doesn't match my taste for this genre (which, along with ambient takes up a lot of my time). I found the LCD-2 very good for classical and jazz (my other mainstays), but preferred the HD800 for those genres. You don't have any headphones I've owned and enjoyed thoroughly, but I think the RE0 might be decent at conveying some personal taste in the are for these genres. I actually believe these genres are the hardest to get "right" or "good enough" because they often rely on technical aspects of sound reproduction - and I usually find a short coming in a headphone somewhere in this regard. Classical and Jazz, by contrast are less about the "sound" and more about the notes played and how they are played. IMO anyway (not sure how many people agree with the 'notes played' comment - but maybe there's some other music theory-heavy members here)

FWIW also, the HD800 was an impressive sound on the above track but jesus that treble spike was actually physically painful (and usually I just found it irritating). There was like, a sound like hitting two marbles together which was really accentuated with them that was just awful to listen to. I'm not sure if anyone who was at the meet where I first heard the HD800 remembers but I said it sounded incredible (it was my first taste of the high end, I suppose), but I would actually flinch every time that sound was there.
 
While we're on the subject of music, I actually really enjoyed the LCD-2 on stuff like Dream Fighter by Perfume (LOL), and to a lesser extent the first track of Carbon Based Lifeform's Hydroponic Garden ("Central Plains"). The bass on each of these was sublime and very true to source IMO. They also did an interesting job of the low end in BT "The other side" (from This Binary Universe). But I think the ER4S and stax (kill me now!) does an even better job of presenting the bass on the carbon based lifeforms example (not so on the BT example for the ER4)
 
I'm talking about music I think most head-fiers would hate, though of course.
 
Other test tracks I use (vocal presence) is Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice as well as Dorset Perception by Shpongle (treble bite, vocal separation, soundstage, how well it responds to jittery sounds (when the vocals start and stop a lot).
 
Maybe you'll get a better sense of what I hear with my gear and my music if you listen to the above. Then again, maybe not
 
PS it always annoys me that people ask about gear before they ask about music. Music is very easy to listen to - maybe you'll actually find that the music in question is responsible for the observations rather than the gear. Of course, maybe not.

Good point.  OK, I'll take you up on that and talk about music.  Again, I'm finding my own experiences with the LCD-2 to be very different, though I'm not using listening to some of the material you mention.  Specifically you've mentioned a midrange congestion which is a bit baffling to me as I've found the LCD-2's to separate very well on dense, complex passages.  Though it does not separate in space that well, it certainly does separate out the sources and layers, and I'd actually put that as one of its assets!  Last night I listened to a few cuts I'm very familiar with:  Antony & the Johnsons, Hope There's Someone, which starts out very stark and simple, and goes into a raucous cacophony of piano chords and overlapping vocals.  This cut is very challenging for a speaker system to keep the layers distinguished and not sound like a big wall of noise where nothing is distinguishable from each other.  The LCD-2's excelled at doing just that separating out each of the harmonizing vocals from the pounding piano notes and never becoming muddied.  I also tried Radioheads, Pack'd Like Sardines, which gets pretty dense with synth effects and deep bass.  Again, layers were cleanly distinguished and the music never became that wall of noise that makes me want to stop listening.  Puscifers, Indigo Children - here again, lots of deep bass and synth vocals -  very enjoyable.  Incredible soundstage cuts I tried just don't wow me like they do on speakers: Tom Waits, Shore Leave, though once again keeping a vast overlapping textures of sounds and noises distinguished from each other, the cans do not create a very large space for them to exist within.   On speakers, (yes, yes, apples and oranges), the sounds are all over the place beyond the edges of the speaker and near and close. The LCD-2s did an admirable job in taming the very deliberate sibilance on that close-miked recording, which on a can like the HD800's can become annoying to the point of distraction. Holly Cole doing Waits, Train Song, demonstrates the same thing where I'm expecting a more vast stage from my experience with speakers and I get something much smaller.  With HD800's these latter two recordings would remind me in some ways of speakers, at least to a greater extent than the LCD-2's.  I did not experience that high-end spike you mentioned on the HD800's in quite the same way as they were very enjoyable cans to me except for their tendency towards accentuating sibilance which really bugged me since I do listen to a lot of vocals.  Still, they do a whole lot of things right.  In the Holly Cole cut there are some high-frequency sounds that go MIA, or are largely chopped back.  I've noticed this in other familiar recordings with certain sounds and cues in the high frequencies. 
 
On your observation about vocal tremolo (I think that's what you're referring to), Antony again is an amazing demonstrator of that quality, and I'd have to say that there I think I do have similar observations in that I don't find those qualities quite as crisp and present as I'm used to on speakers, or on the HD800's or many other headphones I've tried.  Martha Tilston's vocals on, Lucy & the Wolves, also exhibits exaggerated tremolo on a few cuts and again they seem more tempered than my speakers render them (both active monitors in my office and my larger system).
 
In support of qualifying ones observations with the gear you used to listen with - as I mentioned before; the combination of gear has a most profound effect on what you hear.  The speaker (headphone) > amplifier interface is absolutely critical and can make or break some pairings.  If you make a critical statement about a headphone or a pair of speakers without reference to the rest of the system it is of limited, if any value to others who may be considering that singular component you are criticizing. 
 
On your comment about Head-Fi'ers tastes in music not being quite the same as your own - I've found this community to have quite a diverse set of preferences and I would not go so far as to assume there is no one here with similar tastes.  I'd certainly observe that this community is populated by a largely younger crowd, but I'd not go so far as to assume their tastes in music. 
 
 

 

[jermng]

I'm too tired to read every post in detail, but I do notice "mid-range congestion" when I listen with a DACMagic as source, but NOT with an iBasso D12 as DAC, both driven by an Asgard.

 

[MrGreen]

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On your observation about vocal tremolo (I think that's what you're referring to)

 
I'm not sure why it didn't occur for me to call it that.
 
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I'm too tired to read every post in detail, but I do notice "mid-range congestion" when I listen with a DACMagic as source, but NOT with an iBasso D12 as DAC, both driven by an Asgard.

I'm sure I would have noticed it on headphones that were retrieving superior detail to the LCD-2 - particularly those that are less subtle about it. Regardless, I suppose when I upgrade to something everyone can agree is high end, I'll give the LCD-2 another go.

 

[jamato8]

Quote:

In support of qualifying ones observations with the gear you used to listen with - as I mentioned before; the combination of gear has a most profound effect on what you hear.  The speaker (headphone) > amplifier interface is absolutely critical and can make or break some pairings.  If you make a critical statement about a headphone or a pair of speakers without reference to the rest of the system it is of limited, if any value to others who may be considering that singular component you are criticizing. 
 
On your comment about Head-Fi'ers tastes in music not being quite the same as your own - I've found this community to have quite a diverse set of preferences and I would not go so far as to assume there is no one here with similar tastes.  I'd certainly observe that this community is populated by a largely younger crowd, but I'd not go so far as to assume their tastes in music. 
 
 

While we realize the inherent differences of speaker systems and headphones, I still look forward to someday having headphones that can do what good speakers can. My home speaker system, for me, has it all but with my lifestyle that I now have, it resides in storage. 
 
Yes, I have seen so many musical tastes here that there is no way to assume what the majority or minority would be. I recently received 2300 lossless recordings from a friend and the coverage of different genre is vast, which has broadened my horizons. Culture is not static, why would musical tastes be so?