Audeze LCD-3 Impressions Thread

[LifeAspect]

got my lcd-3F back from RMA, new drivers + new cable

 

[Xeculus]

Got to audition and play around with the LCD3 for a few hours thanks to the great guys at Audioconcepts in Dallas. Pretty blown away by how great the LCD3 is with electronic music. 
 
The LCD3 felt really solidly built and looked great with the wooden cups. The thick plus earpads were also welcome. They were a bit heavy however but I thought the headband padding was pretty adequate. 
Bass was very great for fast paced music, particularly electronic or rock. The sub-bass is terrific and the extension is insane. Mids sounded lush and instrument separation was pretty good. Highs weren't fatiguing at all. Fantastic experience.
 
Now if only I had $2k...  

 

[sinkr]

  Hi, can some owner of LCD-3 please tell me - is it feasible to wear them for 8+ hours / day (more like 12 actually)? Or are they too heavy for that and more like a 1-2-3  hour session headphone?

I doubt I wear them 8 contiguous hours a day, but I wear them most of the workday that I can, minus meetings, etc.  While heavy, I find that they wear just fine.  To me, the weight is not a big deal.

 

[sinkr]

  Just received my repaired LCD3s from Audeze. Includes upgrade to Fazors too. Roughly two and a half week turnaround from submission of RMA request and including shipping (Oz - USA - Oz) - Amazing service, mad props to Audeze!!
 
Initial impressions, they sound just as good as the LCD3Cs I had before - the Fazor'd version definitely take less power to drive, can run them on low-gain with pot at 1 pm on my GS-X MK2.
 
Will report back if anything changes. Won't be able to accurately determine any changes in bass performance till I hook them up to my Susy Dynahi.

 
Your post gives me some hope; I contacted Audez'e 3 months or so ago and was told that they weren't doing the Fazor upgrade, because there wasn't enough demand (though they had my email and never contacted me).
 
Can you give us any insight into how you submitted your warranty request?

 

[NinjaHamster]

I doubt I wear them 8 contiguous hours a day, but I wear them most of the workday that I can, minus meetings, etc.  While heavy, I find that they wear just fine.  To me, the weight is not a big deal.

I'm using the LCD-2's which are ever so slightly lighter and have no problems wearing them for over 12 hours per day (and I have a thinnish neck), UNLESS I get lazy and start to slouch or slump forward, and then the weight will quickly become too much (end of lever principle).

 

[Badas]

I use my LCD3C's for 8-10 hours at a time.
I also have my neck bent over typing into a iPad like I'm doing now.
I never get sore. However I box and have a boxers strong neck.

 

[adamaley]

   
Your post gives me some hope; I contacted Audez'e 3 months or so ago and was told that they weren't doing the Fazor upgrade, because there wasn't enough demand (though they had my email and never contacted me).
 
Can you give us any insight into how you submitted your warranty request?

I'm also interested in the answer to this. Just got LCD-3Cs yesterday, but want to have the option of Fazoring them down the road, even if I don't plan to as of now.

 

[bfreedma]

  I'm also interested in the answer to this. Just got LCD-3Cs yesterday, but want to have the option of Fazoring them down the road, even if I don't plan to as of now.

 
According to what Audeze posted here and what I've been told by them, they are no longer offering the fazor as an upgrade.
 
Conversely, if you need a driver replaced due to an issue, the only option is to have them replaced with the fazored driver as they have no stock of the "C" drivers.  I asked when my "C"s went back for repair about 6 months ago as I preferred not going with the fazor.  As it turned out, had to take the fazor and don't regret it.

 

[sinkr]

   
According to what Audeze posted here and what I've been told by them, they are no longer offering the fazor as an upgrade.
 
Conversely, if you need a driver replaced due to an issue, the only option is to have them replaced with the fazored driver as they have no stock of the "C" drivers.  I asked when my "C"s went back for repair about 6 months ago as I preferred not going with the fazor.  As it turned out, had to take the fazor and don't regret it.

 
I think it's short-sighted, not offering the upgrade option at all, esp. when we know that it was possible and is an incremental upgrade (i.e., I'm not asking that they upgrade me to the LCD-4 or next generation).
 
Not cost-effective you might say?  I'd pay probably up to $500 for this work to be done on my LCD-3s.  That's probably the beating I'd take, selling my non-Fazor'd LCD-3s and buying a new, Fazor'd pair, except I get to keep the cans I've used and broken in over the past 1.5 years.
 
Don't make your customer base not trust you, insofar as not taking care of them...  And I think this is a prime example of letting a tactical decision get in the way of a positive customer experience.

 

[Somphon]

  got my lcd-3F back from RMA, new drivers + new cable

 
How long was it gone for?
 
Used mine for 2 months and been waiting for almost 3 months and still no reply from my local dealer. Audeze told me they sent it back almost 3 weeks ago. Audeze should better screen their dealer/reseller, needs better selection process for those that has the capacity to take care of their clients. Simply ridiculous. 

 

[bfreedma]

  
According to what Audeze posted here and what I've been told by them, they are no longer offering the fazor as an upgrade.
 
Conversely, if you need a driver replaced due to an issue, the only option is to have them replaced with the fazored driver as they have no stock of the "C" drivers.  I asked when my "C"s went back for repair about 6 months ago as I preferred not going with the fazor.  As it turned out, had to take the fazor and don't regret it.

 
I think it's short-sighted, not offering the upgrade option at all, esp. when we know that it was possible and is an incremental upgrade (i.e., I'm not asking that they upgrade me to the LCD-4 or next generation).
 
Not cost-effective you might say?  I'd pay probably up to $500 for this work to be done on my LCD-3s.  That's probably the beating I'd take, selling my non-Fazor'd LCD-3s and buying a new, Fazor'd pair, except I get to keep the cans I've used and broken in over the past 1.5 years.
 
Don't make your customer base not trust you, insofar as not taking care of them...  And I think this is a prime example of letting a tactical decision get in the way of a positive customer experience.

Give them a call, maybe they have changed policy.

I think you're off base bring upset with Audeze though. It's not like upgrading existing headphones with new technologies is common in the industry. They offered it for a short time and apparently got few takers so discontinued the offer. I suppose they could have acted like most other headphone manufacturers and simply not offered it at all....

 

[sinkr]

Give them a call, maybe they have changed policy.

I think you're off base bring upset with Audeze though. It's not like upgrading existing headphones with new technologies is common in the industry. They offered it for a short time and apparently got few takers so discontinued the offer. I suppose they could have acted like most other headphone manufacturers and simply not offered it at all....

What grinds my gears is, they had my info on file from a previous RMA on these very same LCDs, yet the customer service rep. cited lack of interest in the upgrade.  I *know* they had my information on file and I had to find out about the upgrade here on head-fi (too late, of course).  So, we can try and guess why they handled the upgrade offer so halfheartedly, but I can say with absolute certainty that they never contacted me about it and I was "on file" with Audeze.
 
So, there's that.
 
If you want to compare them with other headphone manufacturers and say "well <brand X>," go right ahead, but the fact of the matter is they didn't do a very good job of contacting people, then cited a lack of interest as the reason why they no longer offer the upgrade, which is weak at best.

 

[mscott58]

  What grinds my gears is, they had my info on file from a previous RMA on these very same LCDs, yet the customer service rep. cited lack of interest in the upgrade.  I *know* they had my information on file and I had to find out about the upgrade here on head-fi (too late, of course).  So, we can try and guess why they handled the upgrade offer so halfheartedly, but I can say with absolute certainty that they never contacted me about it and I was "on file" with Audeze.
 
So, there's that.
 
If you want to compare them with other headphone manufacturers and say "well <brand X>," go right ahead, but the fact of the matter is they didn't do a very good job of contacting people, then cited a lack of interest as the reason why they no longer offer the upgrade, which is weak at best.

Not sure if the "upgrade" was ever a publicized thing? 

 

[sinkr]

  Not sure if the "upgrade" was ever a publicized thing? 

 
Your guess is as good as mine.  The representative, via Audeze's ZenDesk support portal, told me this (verbatim):
 

Unfortunately due to a lack of interest, the fazor upgrade option has been discontinued. If I can assist you with anything else, please let me know

 
If you take this representative at their word, there was some notion of a public upgrade offering that flopped, then they summarily decided to cancel the upgrade.  Again--who knows--maybe they wanted there to be lack of interest so they say they offered it, but no one was interested.
 
I don't expect Audeze to take a beating on providing existing customers with new technology.  I will pay an appropriate price, up to a certain point (say $500.00), but don't offer it, then jerk it and cite lack of interest if the word was never properly gotten out, which was a point I made to the representative in my closing remarks of the ticket.
 
I don't mean to be a hard-on about it, but this is clearly one marketing campaign that flopped.

 

[mscott58]

If you really want to know the whole story (and also drive yourself crazy in the process) you could read back through the 221 pages of this thread and the 654 pages of the "New Audeze LCD3" thread and piece it all together.