Picked up the LCD-3 about 6 weeks ago and have been reserving my impressions until now, I also own and still love the HD800 but wanted something complementary that would portray my music differently and allow me to enjoy both presentations. These are paired with an auralic taurus mk2 and Gumby A2, fully balanced - welcome to 2014.
So far I'm super impressed by the deep bass, smooth treble and sweet mid-range. I'm also surprised by the amount of detail considering some describe these as dark; compared to the HD800 all the detail is there, just less upfront, but I think the HD800 are a bit more accurate in complex passages. The HD800 is a hifi experience with tons of clarity, air, amazing sound stage, dynamics and speed, but on less perfect records they can sometimes be unforgiving and that makes a lot of modern pop music hard to enjoy. On the other hand the LCD-3 are great all around, and I especially enjoy them for pop and hip-hop, they are much more forgiving of poor recordings. Switching back and forth requires my brain to adjust to the difference in presentation, the HD800 can initially sound thin, and the LCD-3 can initally sound closed/vailed but after the brief adjustment period you quickly forget and things just sound good with either. The LCD-3 are easy to put on, forget, listen and enjoy the natural tone and liquid sound; however I still prefer the HD800 for jazz, acoustic, well recorded music or when I just want a hifi experience of sitting in the front row of a massive stage. Also surprising was just how much bass the HD800 has, it's there, just with more precision and less impact. I don't believe the hd800 lack bass anymore, it's fine just presented differently, however the LCD-3 bass is more satisfying. Comfort wise, HD800 wins, but the LCD-3 with suspension headband is comfortable just slightly heavier but not bothersome to me.
Another thing I feel is worth repeating is that every impression should specify the equipment used. The wrong amp or dac pairing can easily lead to false conclusions, under powered HD800 and LCD-3 can both sound underwhelming. Having experienced this first hand with other equipment some of the impressions I've read on head-fi are likely due to inadequate amps or other equipment in the chain. Overall, I'm happy and feel lucky to be able to own 2 sets of nice cans, but I could live with one great pair just fine. At a certain point high-end headphones sound more similar than different and much of these differences are exaggerated because sometimes we find ourselves listening to the equipment instead of the music.
Now if someone could recommend me a headphone that blended the best parts of each, I might just sell both tomorrow.
