[Thoeri]

I’ll offer my thoughts on that as I went from the 2C to a 2021 LCD-X

I had the 2C for a month and I really enjoyed it. Great bass impact, mids (notably vocals) are excellent and I enjoyed the warmer, toned down highs......especially for listening to metal music at louder volumes as so MANY of those recordings tend to be “hot” in the upper treble and get fatiguing quickly. The 2C is perfect for that kind of scenario. I also found the vocals.....particularly male vocals to sound really good and visceral. It also does a decent job of conveying soundstage width although the placement and panning has some dead spots.

So why did I get rid of it?

The highs are too recessed IMO......even for a treble sensitive person like myself. On recordings I’m very familiar with a lot of nuances and details are buried in the mix or in many cases......almost inaudible. I also felt on some female voices it made them sound on the congested/nasally side. I had always heard so many good things about the LCD-X that I thought I would give them a try and compare them to my 2C. So thanks to Amazon I sent the 2C back before my 30days were up and ordered the LCD-X from Adorama (who also provide 30 day, no questions asked returns in case I didn’t think the upgrade was worth it) I was also unaware at the time of purchase but mine were built in late 2020 and are the latest revised versions (aka the 2021)

After I had one day with them I knew they were keepers for me. I like them a lot more than the 2C. The 2C sounds wider and gives the impression of stronger bass but the X is better everywhere. The X may seem to not have has much bass slam as the 2C but how it does the bass is superior. It reaches lower, it’s faster, tighter and you can hear the details and textures in the bass better. The 2C for lack of better description sounds a little “one note-ish” to me in how it delivers bass......a bit rumbly and loose sounding. Still fun and enjoyable but definitely less refined.

Mids are even sounding to me and vocals sound excellent. The 2C is more present vocal wise but can seem a tad shouty on some recordings. The X never sounds that way. I also find female vocals sound more natural as well thanks to the extra treble and air the X has over the 2C.

Treble wise......definitely brighter than the 2C but it’s done in such a nice way. As mentioned, I’m treble sensitive and even at elevated volume levels the highs are just bright enough but still warm enough to not cause fatigue for me. The best part though.....all those subtle details, nuances or whatever you want to call them are there that were often missing on the 2C and placement throughout the soundstage is much easier to decipher.

With all that said I still think the 2C is a REALLY great headphone and an excellent entry point to the LCD line. I still may add it to my arsenal in the future as I think it’s different enough from the X to warrant owning it.....notably for those “treble gone wild” rock and metal albums in my collection and especially when I do those brief “listen at stupid volume level” sessions of those albums.

When did you buy the Classics?

 

[gimmeheadroom]

What I've found with the Classics is that the mids are a bit elevated, which I don't like. Equalizing them down while boosting the bass solved that issue for me, and made them sound great. I wanted to boost the treble aswell, but for some reason it becomes very shouty from even just a small boost here.. Maybe because of the lack of resolution?

The mids are not elevated. I guess maybe you're used to a big V.

 

[Thoeri]

The mids are not elevated. I guess maybe you're used to a big V.

I'm used to neutral harman mids, which a lot of headphones follows. Not the 2c though. There's a bump at around 600hz-1khz, and the lower mids are ~1db above. The bump explains why the user above found them nasally. Not massively elevated, but enough for me to dial it down. And the result was much better to me.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Out of almost 500 pages, there are maybe 2 guys who think that. It's probably the last pair of headphones to need EQ to reduce mids...

 

[Thoeri]

Out of almost 500 pages, there are maybe 2 guys who think that. It's probably the last pair of headphones to need EQ to reduce mids...

Look at any frequency response for this unit, and you will find that bump. I didn't know what it did for the sound until I dialed it back down to linear. It doesn't cause the mids to become incredibly loud or anything, it just affects the timbre a bit. Maybe saying the mids are forward is not the right wording on my part though. Last? Atleast half of the market (500 dollar+) has linear mids, this one comes close but not quite there like many others. If you like that random bump then you do you. But for most people linear mids gives the best sound.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Look at any frequency response for this unit, and you will find that bump. I didn't know what it did for the sound until I dialed it back down to linear. It doesn't cause the mids to become incredibly loud or anything, it just affects the timbre a bit. Maybe saying the mids are forward is not the right wording on my part though. Last? Atleast half of the market (500 dollar+) has linear mids, this one comes close but not quite there like many others. If you like that random bump then you do you. But for most people linear mids gives the best sound.

Audeze is pretty famous for being unable to make two headphones the same but I had thought the LCD-2C was the most uniform. So who knows, I can't tell you what you hear. I think the timbre and tonality on these are like a planar HD 600. Agreed, the LCD-2C isn't perfect in that, but I never felt it needed any adjustment or that it could be fixed by EQ.

 

[Thoeri]

Audeze is pretty famous for being unable to make two headphones the same but I had thought the LCD-2C was the most uniform. So who knows, I can't tell you what you hear. I think the timbre and tonality on these are like a planar HD 600. Agreed, the LCD-2C isn't perfect in that, but I never felt it needed any adjustment or that it could be fixed by EQ.

I agree that with the new pads from 2021, the Classics sounds really good out of the box! Apart from bass, this is probably the headphone I've tried that I eq the least. With the old pads however, they sounded very distant and blurred out of the box. The new padding made wonders for this headphone.

 

[Derivative]

I’ll offer my thoughts on that as I went from the 2C to a 2021 LCD-X

I had the 2C for a month and I really enjoyed it. Great bass impact, mids (notably vocals) are excellent and I enjoyed the warmer, toned down highs......especially for listening to metal music at louder volumes as so MANY of those recordings tend to be “hot” in the upper treble and get fatiguing quickly. The 2C is perfect for that kind of scenario. I also found the vocals.....particularly male vocals to sound really good and visceral. It also does a decent job of conveying soundstage width although the placement and panning has some dead spots.

So why did I get rid of it?

The highs are too recessed IMO......even for a treble sensitive person like myself. On recordings I’m very familiar with a lot of nuances and details are buried in the mix or in many cases......almost inaudible. I also felt on some female voices it made them sound on the congested/nasally side. I had always heard so many good things about the LCD-X that I thought I would give them a try and compare them to my 2C. So thanks to Amazon I sent the 2C back before my 30days were up and ordered the LCD-X from Adorama (who also provide 30 day, no questions asked returns in case I didn’t think the upgrade was worth it) I was also unaware at the time of purchase but mine were built in late 2020 and are the latest revised versions (aka the 2021)

After I had one day with them I knew they were keepers for me. I like them a lot more than the 2C. The 2C sounds wider and gives the impression of stronger bass but the X is better everywhere. The X may seem to not have has much bass slam as the 2C but how it does the bass is superior. It reaches lower, it’s faster, tighter and you can hear the details and textures in the bass better. The 2C for lack of better description sounds a little “one note-ish” to me in how it delivers bass......a bit rumbly and loose sounding. Still fun and enjoyable but definitely less refined.

Mids are even sounding to me and vocals sound excellent. The 2C is more present vocal wise but can seem a tad shouty on some recordings. The X never sounds that way. I also find female vocals sound more natural as well thanks to the extra treble and air the X has over the 2C.

Treble wise......definitely brighter than the 2C but it’s done in such a nice way. As mentioned, I’m treble sensitive and even at elevated volume levels the highs are just bright enough but still warm enough to not cause fatigue for me. The best part though.....all those subtle details, nuances or whatever you want to call them are there that were often missing on the 2C and placement throughout the soundstage is much easier to decipher.

With all that said I still think the 2C is a REALLY great headphone and an excellent entry point to the LCD line. I still may add it to my arsenal in the future as I think it’s different enough from the X to warrant owning it.....notably for those “treble gone wild” rock and metal albums in my collection and especially when I do those brief “listen at stupid volume level” sessions of those albums.

Thanks very much for the comprehensive write-up, gives me a feel for the differences between these two. I rather enjoy my 2C but will definitely audition the X at some point. Of the three "niche" American brands I've tried (Audeze, ZMF and DCA) I prefer Audeze both for the design / build and the sound. So would be logical to upgrade in that direction, if anything.

 

[The Hawk]

When did you buy the Classics?

Mine were bought in December 2020. They were made prior to the 2021 pad revision as they had the older gen memory foam pads.

I should have clarified that as it changes the sound presentation.

 

[Derivative]

is there a simple way to figure out which pads are on my 2C? or which year it's from?

 

[Opalius]

Driver failure rates on the LCD2c??? Before I buy, tale me,.. have people had driver failures on the 2c??

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Driver failure rates on the LCD2c??? Before I buy, tale me,.. have people had driver failures on the 2c??

No, I have never seen a single report of driver failures on the 2C. On the 3s, before 2019 (2017?) there were a lot of unhappy people.

I'm listening to a pair of 3Fs right now, I can't remember when I bought them but I'm sure it it was after the bad period because I waited until I saw a pattern in the complaints. I just don't recall the details now. I think Audeze driver failures are thankfully a thing of the past.

 

[dsrk]

is there a simple way to figure out which pads are on my 2C? or which year it's from?

The pads on the latest version are less deep, 25mm front and 40mm back. The foam is also a little stiffer and they are not memory foam.

With these pads they feel more secure on the head and lighter.

 

[Derivative]

The pads on the latest version are less deep, 25mm front and 40mm back. The foam is also a little stiffer and they are not memory foam.

With these pads they feel more secure on the head and lighter.

Ok thanks for this - mine are definitely thicker than that and they are relatively soft. I guess they are the old ones. I don't mind them but yea they may be just a little too soft.

 

[Opalius]

The pads on the latest version are less deep, 25mm front and 40mm back. The foam is also a little stiffer and they are not memory foam.

With these pads they feel more secure on the head and lighter.

So do your ears touch anything inside the new pads?

I'm asking since it turns out I have been demoing the old version...