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Yoga, good call on asking for a clarification. Sankar's update renders 85% of the last 300-odd posts in this thread useless.
I can't say I know what to make of Audez'e's descriptions of the signature thus far and at this point am just waiting for Warrior Ant's impressions, whose mutant powers are very reliable--it seems he was spot on about the FR graphs.
Actually, I remember Grokit posting something interesting about the FR of the new drivers and old drivers w/ new pads being almost identical.
I won't get to my LCD-s until Friday. The absence of any headphone is giving me the chance to finally write some comments on the V200. But I have to say this about anything I might have to say outside a comparison of the 2 LCD-s. My observations about the LCD-s in general and the V200 may not be very valid when placed in the larger picture of the headphone landscape considering I've never had a headphone rig before. The LCD-2's are the only cans I ever heard outside my daughters Audio Technica AD700's and her Grado 80is which are like toys in comparison to the LCD-2's. I have an impression of the V200 which is very favorable but I cannot compare it to anything else because I've never heard another head amp. My impressions are really impressions of a marriage of the DAC-2, V200, and LCD-2. I have no way of separating out the DAC/Amp/Headphone in the equation nor do I have the experience of comparing any of the trio against anything else past or present.
I do use the W4S DAC-2 in a speaker rig and I can say it is an impressive unit. I've used the LCD-2 with an NAD 7225PE receiver and out the back of the DAC-2 before I received the V200 and I know how the LCD-2 sounded from those two sources but thats about it. I know that when I changed out an MIT MI 330 unbalanced cable between the DAC-2 and the V200 and replaced it with a balanced cable sold by W4S the LCD's came alive. The MIT MI 330 cable was really holding the rig back.
When I read the description Audeze worded on their website about the changes to the new drivers I came away with the sense that the tonal balance has remained, that the treble has not increased in freq amplitude but in extension slightly. That the thinner driver has resulted in a faster driver which has given the LCD perhaps the ability to resolve a bit more inner detail. Inner detail clues may result in an increased perception of soundstage and imaging. I don't expect the soundstage to increase dramatically.
These thought are of course only my pondering on Audezes descriptions to the sound however I owned the Martin Logan CLS II's from their inception up through all the revision they made to the electrostatic panels and when ever they made a revision to the panel it was usually to make the panel thinner and faster. The results never strayed from the sound of speaker at all, they just became a little more refined in very very small ways. Usually very small improvements to inner detail, imaging, soundstaging and treble extension. But as anyone who loves electrostatics knows no improvement in treble response can ever be groundbreaking with planar type transducers without adding a tweeter.
So without tainting the LCD-2 with overly hopeful expectations I'm pretty much thinking that the change to the driver is not going to be anything nearing day and night but more like very subtle, very small changes overall. I think the guys at Audeze are pretty smart guys who don't have knee jerk reactions to change the sound of the LCD-2. I think they looked at the driver over time and simply found ways to improve on them mostly by making the driver thinner. The drivers are probably of a design that was pretty good already and the only improvement that could be made were in the drivers thickness and perhaps on how the magic stuff they coat them with is prepared and applied.
I´m writing an LCD-2 review to my fellow Scandinavian head-fiers, so that list comes in handy.
