[murl]

Serial number is 232. It was new when I purchased the unit from a dealer. Maybe they had it for a while.

Ryan

 

[Articnoise]

Serial number is 232. It was new when I purchased the unit from a dealer. Maybe they had it for a while.

Ryan

 

If the serial number start with 232 your LCD3 is old (2012-2013) and pre fazor.

 

Did you pay full price? 

 

[murl]

I didn't pay full price. You can see the fazor element inside, odd.

 

[Picassofish]

  lcd3 2016 (...) also has blacker background and more detail ,its more smooth  with more sub bass and less mid bass.  bass is faster tighter cleaner and punch harder.
more air and soundstage is bigger, over all sound is more transparent ...
 
lcd3 2016 is also less warm and has less body , its thinner and drier sounding comparing to previous lcd3 models ...
 
(...)
 
i could hear new lcd3 is technically superior but i prefer the older version because of tonality and body of midrange , ts sweeter darker with more depth and weight to the sound.

 
I prefer the 2015 version too. The problem is that I'm very treble sensitive, and subtle changes in this range can sound quite dramatic to me.
 
Last month I tested an LCD-3 for a week (an early fazor unit from January 2015), and I loved it. BIG body, and many of my favorite CDs sounded more natural than ever before - partly because it didn't accentuate the recording artifacts the way most other TOTL headphones do. (The price was that the upper mids could feel slightly "soft" sometimes, but that was nothing an EQ couldn't fix quite easily - and after a few days my ears had adapted to it anyway.)
 
I HAD to have it, so I ordered one, knowing that my version would sound slightly different, but I thought that it would be quite nice to have an LCD-3 that sounds somewhat "fresher". And so it seemed when I got my unit - I listened to it for a few minutes with my portable amp, and it sounded just as I had imagined (if maybe a tiny bit sharp on top). Unfortunately I found out that the wood rings were broken due to bad packaging, so it had to be returned to the distributor.
 
When I got it back 2 weeks later and finally had the chance to listen to it with my home rig, I couldn't believe it: The natural sound I had heard and loved was gone, everything sounded off balance and artificial, "digital" if you will. I guess they left the soft upper mids of the old version and boosted the treble - that's definitely not a signature that I expect when I order an Audeze headphone. (Maybe my reaction sounds exaggerated, but in order for something to sound natural, you have to do much right; all it takes to make it sound artificial is to do one thing wrong...)
 
A few days later I returned to the store with the LCD-3 and my Pro iCAN and compared my version with the older one; I even did blind tests. It was always evident which one was the newer version, because it always sounded kind of scratchy. It felt a bit punchier too, but I attribute this to another slight boost in the frequency range which (for my ears) just threw everything off balance even more. Records from the 70s sounded beautifully real on the 2015 version; switching to the newer one, the treble got papery and slightly unpleasant.
 
I ended up returning the 2016 version and buying the demo unit.

 

[Arttt]

@Picassofish

You did the right choice, older version had more of an anolog sound, like vynil vs cd.

I also choose demo version from the shop over a new pair with latest drivers from 2016...

Less air less detail but the tone is right, and for me it's the most important thing- tonality done right!
Soundstage of lcd3 older version is not impressive to many ears, but for me it's very special - it imitates acoustic of Classic Music Hall with pitch black background and no reflections because of great damping and acoustic treatments. Music is very warm lush and full-bodied without grabbing your ears by force or fake excitement...

The only headphone that does same thing with inner acoustic is Stax 007 omega mk2, both lcd3 and 007 mk2 imitates Acoustics of music hall to a level I never thought was possible by a headphones...

And for those who chaise cheap thrills with over emphased treble with all the sparkle and digital glare should have fun with new lcd3 , still an impressive headphone but that's it, nothing special...

Congratulations on getting a pair that suits your taste!

 

[Picassofish]

@Picassofish

You did the right choice, older version had more of an anolog sound, like vynil vs cd.

 
That's exactly what I thought too (and it's, by the way, the main reason why I love the HD 650): It's definitely an "analog" sound. I don't believe that vinyl sounds better per se; but up to the 80s, music was produced for vinyl - so it's a very good thing to have one or two headphones that somehow mimic the sound of a record player I don't think that it's a good idea to accentuate everything a turntable would have concealed.
 
IMO the early fazored version of the LCD-3 is exactly what recordings of the 60s and 70s call for: A headphone that does justice to the original mixes. I listened to Bowie's "Life on Mars" with the 2015 model, and it sounded as smooth as it possibly can (given that the record came out in 1971). Then I switched to the 2016 model, and the song sounded years older than it actually was.
 
Again, I guess many people would find everything I say wildly exaggerated, and not everyone looks for a sound that's more natural than the recording itself. For me the tragic point is that Audeze was probably the only company which built headphones that were very powerful in the truest sense, but not "exciting" in headphone-speak (i.e. treble-tilted). Now they seem to follow the herd.
 

Less air less detail but the tone is right, and for me it's the most important thing- tonality done right! 

 
I don't even think that there is more real (musical) detail to be heard with the newer version. Boosted treble or upper mids might push parts of the recording above the threshold of hearing which would otherwise be concealed, but most of the time these are things I don't want to hear (and were not supposed to be heard in the first place). For my (admittedly hypersensitive) ears, what is boosted by the usual treble happy headphone tuning is mainly noise. See above... 
 

 Congratulations on getting a pair that suits your taste!

 
Thanks. But it really worries me to think that there might be a driver fail - in which case the 2015 sound would be gone for good...

 

[Arttt]

Thats true... such thought crossed my mind 2.
 
But hey , theres always secondhand lcd3 pairs you could buy in good condition.
 
Some headphones that are worth hearing are :
 
Beyerdynamic DT150  ( really great, one of the best vocals reproduction i heard )
KOSS porta pro 2.0
Shure SE 215
 
for a small price you get analog type of sound that focus on midrange warmth and full-bodied sound

 

[Tweakybiff]

The LCD-3s and the LCD-Xs are different headphones for different applications.  All-in-all, the LCD-3 is a superior headphone to the LCD-X, but not by a whole lot.  The key differences are the resistance values, with  the LCD-3s being rated at 110 ohms, and the LCD-Xs being rated at 20 ohms.  Making the LCD-Xs more efficient does result in a slight tradeoff in sound quality. Basically, if you want to have the flexibility of using your headphones with an iPhone or other portable device without an added amp, you may consider the LCD-Xs.  If you are primarily going to use them at your home, with a dedicated amp, I would definitely recommend the LCD-3s.  You could get a Chord Mojo or something similar to get the most of of a set of LCD-3s on the go too, if you don't mind carrying a bit of extra kit around.  I have a pair of LCD-3s and a pair of LCD-XCs (basically the closed back version of the LCD-Xs) if you have any other questions.  

 

[analog'd]

just my two cents on the lcd-3 driven by the mojo: yes it will play, and with ok volume, but i owned the mojo and sold it because I was not pleased with the quality of this output. it is "just ok" compared to driving them with an amp that really has the umph. note the technical term "umph", use to carefully indicate that i can not tell you why this is so, i do not have the tech expertise. but i have the gear and i have the ear.

of course, i may be crazy. there are others who have posted that they are ok with the mojo/lcd3 combo - but there are others who came to the same conclusion as i did. 

best of luck whatever you use!   

oh, i then tried the Herus and liked it driving other cans but found it too couldn't do the lcd-3 justice. i now own the concero hp which is great with them. interestingly enough (or maybe not) when i tried to figure out by reading every friggin post and review in the universe if the concero hp was gonna do it, i found different people saying different things about it. not sure why in  this case, as the concero hp is holding up to my soloist very well. different of course, but the cans are driven all the way. 

i liked the resonessence labs herus so much that i'm giving it to my daughter. and there were no concero hps up used, so i asked if they had any B stock and they did. i got a very very good deal on a new Concero HP that they said had a small imperfection in the rear corner of it's case. i can barely spot that imperfection. they sell new for 850, i paid 550. a 450 used one would have been nice, but this is even nicer. the sound with every can i throw at it is superb, although for some reason i don't love it driving the sine.

 

[Bigsecret]

Interesting following this thread. I bought my LCD3s in 2013 (ser. # 261.....).Then in May of 2014 sent them in for the favor upgrade. I couldn't be happier with them. No problems at all and I find them so very musical I haven't had any real desire to upgrade. I have always listened through DNA Stratus tube amp. I learned a long time ago that truly musical sounding components are those that are more subtle and not 'flashy' in any way. 

 

[Picassofish]

just my two cents on the lcd-3 driven by the mojo: yes it will play, and with ok volume, but i owned the mojo and sold it because I was not pleased with the quality of this output. it is "just ok" compared to driving them with an amp that really has the umph. note the technical term "umph", use to carefully indicate that i can not tell you why this is so, i do not have the tech expertise. but i have the gear and i have the ear.

The Mojo is basically a DAC without a separate headphone amp stage. Normally its output is far lower than a standardized line-out signal, but if you just want to use it as a DAC you can "trick" it into full line level. (They somewhat hilariously warn you that you should never use headphones with such a high "volume" - i.e. with an output that's still weaker than the headphone-out of a FiiO X5.) Technically, it's not even an amplifier - you could arguably call it an attenuator (EDIT: This part was rubbish - I was working from memory and got a few numbers mixed up. Sorry...).

Maybe you can get the LCD-3 loud enough with a Mojo, but I agree that it takes a lot more "umph" to drive it even close to its potential.

of course, i may be crazy. there are others who have posted that they are ok with the mojo/lcd3 combo - but there are others who came to the same conclusion as i did.

It's a matter of what you want and what you listen to. If someone simply wants the LCD-3 for its frequency response (lush midrange, linear sub bass etc.), an amp which just barely makes it loud enough might be OK (it helps that it's a planar with a typically flat impedance curve, so you surely don't need a lot of power in order to simply hear any bass at all).

But if you're anything like me, you want a whole lot more. IMO the LCD-3 is one of the very best rock headphones you can get, but to hear that you have to give it a whole lot of power. The only mobile amp I know that does it somewhat justice in this regard is the iFi Micro iDSD (I still prefer desktop beasts like its bigger brother, the Pro iCAN). More power means more body, better dynamics, even the soundstage opens up nicely, not only in width but especially in height (although the latter is such a subjective thing that some might not hear any difference at all).

Maybe the people who are fine with the LCD-3/Mojo combo are the same ones who feel that high gain just means more volume.

 

[analog'd]

  It's a matter of what you want and what you listen to. If someone simply wants the LCD-3 for its frequency response (lush midrange, linear sub bass etc.), an amp which just barely makes it loud enough might be OK (it helps that it's a planar with a typically flat impedance curve, so you surely don't need a lot of power in order to simply hear any bass at all).
 
But if you're anything like me, you want a whole lot more. IMO the LCD-3 is one of the very best rock headphones you can get, but to hear that you have to give it a whole lot of power. The only mobile amp I know that does it somewhat justice in this regard is the iFi Micro iDSD (I still prefer desktop beasts like its bigger brother, the Pro iCAN). More power means more body, better dynamics, even the soundstage opens up nicely, not only in width but especially in height (although the latter is such a subjective thing that some might not hear any difference at all).
 
Maybe the people who are fine with the LCD-3/Mojo combo are the same ones who feel that high gain just means more volume.

indeed.
i heard an ifi ican and it had the juice but i wasn't in love with the sonics. have you heard the concero hp with the lcd3?

 

[Tweakybiff]

Interesting Picassofish.  According to the website , the Chord Mojo is rated at 720mW for an 8Ω load, with no mention of the "trick" needed to get it to function as an amp.  However, the Fi Micro iDSD does seem to be a lot more powerful, and I will have to check it out!  

 

[Picassofish]

  indeed.
i heard an ifi ican and it had the juice but i wasn't in love with the sonics. have you heard the concero hp with the lcd3?

 
No, unfortunately I haven't (and it might be hard to find a demo unit around here)... But I'm in fact quite satisfied with the Pro iCAN, especially for my Audezes. What did you dislike about it?
 
For me, one reason why the Pro is a nice match for the LCD-3 (and the XC too) is its tweakability. The wildly inconsistent production of rock music (which is what I listen to most with Audeze headphones - for most classical music I still prefer my Sennheisers) can be a pain, especially if one is sensitive for soundstage issues; I like how the iCAN solves at least a part of this problem (yes, I'm a fan of the 3D knob ).

 

[Picassofish]

Interesting Picassofish. According to the website , the Chord Mojo is rated at 720mW for an 8Ω load, with no mention of the "trick" needed to get it to function as an amp. However, the Fi Micro iDSD does seem to be a lot more powerful, and I will have to check it out!

The "trick" is: If you press the two volume buttons simultaneously in a certain way, you get full line level - and can use it as a DAC. If you use it as an amp, the output is way lower. Sounds crazy, but that's how it is.

Powerwise, the Micro iDSD is several leagues above. I wouldn't buy one without having listened to it though - it may sound a little "analytical" for some (however I didn't feel that was the case with the LCD-3). If you don't need battery operation, the Micro iCAN might be a good alternative.