[manpowre]

Another topic Ive noted recently is, in the different Focal Elear and Utopia threads there are numerous of people reporting listening fatigue with both Elear and Utopia connected to different amp's and equipment. That is very very interesting. Utopia has more air uptop yes, and somewhat a bit more precise uptop than LCD4, but midrange and low LCD4 is the king (Not tried Abyss though).
 
But I never get any listening fatigue with my LCD4 ! I use them every evening for hours once I get home and darkness settles.

 

[socks mk2]

I never get any listening fatigue with my LCD4 ! I use them every evening for hours once I get home and darkness settles.

I concur. Even if I'm listening at too loud of volumes for too long without enough breaks. There's no point that I feel the need to take a break. When I take the LCD-4 off, my eardrums are free from high SPL fatigue that one experiences with semi-/closed backs for example. This holds true for even 6 hour sessions.

 

[manpowre]

I concur. Even if I'm listening at too loud of volumes for too long without enough breaks. There's no point that I feel the need to take a break. When I take the LCD-4 off, my eardrums are free from high SPL fatigue that one experiences with semi-/closed backs for example. This holds true for even 6 hour sessions.

Yeah, I definetely think the listening fatigue for Focal Elear/Utopia should be a hot topic at CanJam NY the next few days..
 
Mabye thats why they are pushing these tube amps in the show !

 

[Modwright01]

I confirm, no fatigue with the LCD 4.
 
This is the less fatiguing headphone I ever own, equal as the Sony R10.

 

[Naim.F.C]

Actually, it is more complicated than that. There are other factors involved.

The article I know that gets closer to explaining what is involved is this one, but requires some background in electronics theory:
Heavy Load: How Loudspeakers Torture Amplifiers
http://www.stereophile.com/reference/707heavy/#WxP1yrUtZZgsRpBT.97

None of what was written in this article disputes my point above. Thus isn't so much about the speed that current or voltage travels, rather how impedance impacts things. That is the resistance in electrical components to electrical currents, and how it affects load or power requirements.

 

[AFWannabe]

I don't have much knowledge about electricity and power delivery (not much knowledge about cars either) but is this in some ways similar to Dynamic Transient Current Delivery that Shunyata talk so much about?

When I was powering my DAVE through the basic power cable it came with there were times (especially with low recording level recordings) when I felt the DAVE was just falling short of driving the LCD-4s with sufficient authority. At these times I would usually have volume set at somewhere between -10dB and -4dB to deliver normal volume levels. But since getting a Shunyata Alpha HC cable for the DAVE (plugged straight into a non-dedicated wall socket, but also tried in a Shunyata UK6 distribution block), I now hardly ever feel this. There is now more weight, punch and authority without any loss of dynamics. I dare say a Shunyata Denali (sadly not available to us in the UK) would improve things even further.

So is the better solution to improve power to the DAVE rather than to add power (and negatively impact on transparency) after it?

If I've got that wrong, please don't come down to heavily on me. As I said, I have little technical knowledge and am just trying to make sense of personal experience and what I have read on this and other threads/forums.

 
I would say this is one of the resistances faced by an amplifier to deliver what is required of it.
 
Returning to the engine analogy, maybe something like a free flowing air filter, or high pressure fuel pump...

 

[AFWannabe]

  There seems to be a lot of things being discussed here. Firstly the post that got this started was that DAVE was clipping with an LCD-4. But it appears that the volume being set was likely to cause clipping (+9) and that the volume with most sources was so loud that only a partially deaf person would be using it that high!
 
Secondly, there was talk of the "inertia" of a speaker moving from standstill near maximum excursion and the power draw needed to overcome it. Does any of that apply at all to a planar magnetic headphone let alone the effect of inertia with such a small driver. With a planar headphone the lack of a need to overcome inertia is part of the reason it is able to reproduce such fine detail I thought? 
 
OTOH, there is a lot more complexity to a headphones power rating than just "max" power output. There is the slew rate which AFAIK relates to how quickly the amplifier can go from 0v to max voltage and I think this is being confused with physical inertia. The max output power may not be consistent across the frequency range. I have also noticed that manufacturers who quote output power at 32, 50, 100, 200 ohm measurements show the relationship of impedance and output power is not absolutely relative as the maths suggests.
 
I am wondering if the primary delta between the perception of drive with authority vs lacking "punch" or "slam" is slew rate, or if the max power is not as published under certain conditions (e.g. continuous bass in the music) and the voltage is collapsing.

 
Yes, the slew-rate is probably what could be compared to the torque of an engine.
 
Regarding the inertia of the membrane, we have to consider that the amplifier has not only to accelerate, but also to decelerate, put it to a standstill, and thousands of times per second.
p=mv.
The membrane may be very light, but it vibrates at a very high speed, so a little mass at very high speed, has a lot of momentum.

 

[AFWannabe]

None of what was written in this article disputes my point above. Thus isn't so much about the speed that current or voltage travels, rather how impedance impacts things. That is the resistance in electrical components to electrical currents, and how it affects load or power requirements.

 
It is not about the speed of the electric current in an ideal medium that we are talking about here, but the ability of the amplifier to deliver voltage and current variations in a way that overcomes both the resistances from the loudspeaker, and its own internal resistances, from the power supply, to the output transistors or tubes.

 

[KMann]

LCD-4 like most planar is a much simpler purely resistive load and are much easier to control when compared to dynamic headphones as LCD-4s  impedance is not dependent on frequency.
 
I listen at low-moderate levels. I have used my LCD-4s with a variety of DACs/Amps (ordered by my preference of their amp sections driving LCD-4): Mojo < ifi iDSD Micro < (Deckard, Oppo HA-1) < (SPL Phonoitor 2, Bryston BHA-1) < GS-X Mk2  when using Mojo as a DAC. When using Hugo-TT, I slightly prefered GS-X- Mk2 over amp out of TT and with DAVE, I preferred not using any amp, due to loss of transparency (These are my personal preferences, please do not treat it as an official recommendation by Audeze). This said I would be happy with Mojo->iDSD as a temporary setup or if I had to travel with LCD-4.
 
All the amps I listened above were able to drive the LCD-4s comfortably to my normal listening levels (in a quite room at night) and did not have any clipping or audible distortions, yet they do not sound the same in terms of transparency, clarity, soundstage, depth, bass impact, add your favorite word here and I clearly had a preference. I did not try to look up the spec sheet to try and explain the difference. But it is easier to explain sonic differences than to explain the reason for the difference.
 
My 2cs on specs:  It may not always be needing 'moour power'. Instead, more to do with how clean and truthful the power delivered is at the levels that are needed by the headphone and to some extent required by the nature of source material being played. 
 

The problem of going purely based on specs is it does not always tell the full story. THD and noise measurements are averaged quantities, they rarely give us an idea of what the maximum instantaneous  errors are. If you took a small but sharp peak riding a larger signal and run it through a FFT, it is going to appear smothered over a wide range of frequencies to a point where we may not even see it. We do not live in an 'averaged' world that does windowing and spectral analysis, our ears have incredible dynamic range and are quite good at picking up subtle changes that gives us directional and depth cues in real-time, we may hear differences that would be hard to explain through measurements. 
 

 

[Hifi59]

Re: the Dave - don't most amps use 0dB as 100% power? So if you exceed that, then you should get clipping? If every +3dB represents a doubling of power, then at +9dB you are at 800% power. No wonder it's clipping...

Your numbers and logic seem correct but It assumes source outputs are fixed, I would think.

 

[Hifi59]

Another topic Ive noted recently is, in the different Focal Elear and Utopia threads there are numerous of people reporting listening fatigue with both Elear and Utopia connected to different amp's and equipment. That is very very interesting. Utopia has more air uptop yes, and somewhat a bit more precise uptop than LCD4, but midrange and low LCD4 is the king (Not tried Abyss though).

But I never get any listening fatigue with my LCD4 ! I use them every evening for hours once I get home and darkness settles.

Listening fatigue is why I sold my Elears. It's a subtle thing,but after maybe 45-60 minutes, I had enough. Not sure if it is due to lack of resolution or just their sound signature. They sound great for about the first 5-10minutes though and then it's downhill from there. This was my experience when they were paired with both my Burson CV2 and Wells Audio Milo amps. I tried but it was a no go. I do not experience fatigue with any of my LCDs or Hifimans. I can listen to those for hours on end. I just received my Eikons the other day and I am discovering that I can listen to these for long periods of time also , even though they sound different than the LCDs and Hifimans.

 

[rgs9200m]

My new Norne Draug 2 is *THE GREATEST* cable for my LCD4. It makes it very much more refined and dramatically reduces digital glare I often experienced..
I highly recommend the Norne without hesitation. Trevor is a brilliant craftsman who really knows how to design a sonic masterpiece.

 

[matthewhypolite]

I would like to know more. So you preferred Liquid Gold? Main reasons why?

 
The Dark Star has alot of power, but the LAu to my ears seems more refined, transparent, and cleaner sounding than the dark star. Dark Star is still great though.

 

[Torq]

  My new Norne Draug 2 is *THE GREATEST* cable for my LCD4. It makes it very much more refined and dramatically reduces digital glare I often experienced..
I highly recommend the Norne without hesitation. Trevor is a brilliant craftsman who really knows how to design a sonic masterpiece.

Trevor does nice work for sure, and is a pleasure to deal with.
 
Still, I've switched to running one of these (see below) with my LCD-4 (and connector-appropriate-variations of it for my Utopia and Abyss ... preferring it to the DHC Spore4 there too).  Unique interleaved-quad-helix geometry, ultra-low inductance, capacitance and impedance, large effective AWG, high-purity OCC wiring, fully shielded, cryo-treated, electron-beam-irradiated, soft, super-flexible and non-microphonic.  The sheath is reflective and even glows in the dark too (not sure why this matters, but it is pretty).
 

 
Best my headphones have sounded.

 

[rgs9200m]

Awesome Torq. Thank you. For that. It seems I'm always looking to reduce digital glare, except on my Sony Z1R, which seems to inherently deal with glare nicely.
(By the way Torq, it's off-topic but I suggest you give the Sony a listen if you haven't. I feel it's a revelatory headphone.)
By the way, what is that cable? I didn't see your signature in the post. I'll go hunting around to see if I can find it. Thanks again for the tip on this cable.