[seamon]

I can imagine a hot delivery van parked up in CA in summer, temps up to 55°C....

But back to failures, I sympathise with the cases here, but Utopias have had driver failures, and don't forget they don't pass on there warranty so resale may be bad. Then the Stax 007s and 009s have also had driver failures reported on here and at the other place. The 009s were 'fixed' but I read cases fairly recently. I also heard of some Abyss driver failures, not sure about the warranty on those. Oddly not heard of any Hifi-Man, not looked very hard though. IMO high end cans can be fragile. If we take care of them, use decent amps to drive them and store under a glass bell jar or in the supplied case should be ok. No idea, but if folk leave then out all day and night in the dust, on top of hot amps or near a radiator, near a window that gets direct sun, put them on roughly (suction thing) lots of reasons to damage any HP there.

My current concern is how the LCD4 are going on QC, and the amount of driver issues. No idea on sales numbers on Audeze for the LCD2, LCD3 and LCD4s, but may be higher than the Stax 007 and 009? Totally guessing. But reports on the Audeze will be vocal on here, maybe the home market of Stax less so, so only the Western Stax users will post here?

No idea. Anyway, 3 years warranty is pretty good at Audeze, and I did ask if they would sell a replacement driver set as cost / more or less cost for a failed driver out of warranty and they said they would do that.

Thoughts guys?

Audeze has by far the best warranty of any TOTL HP manufacturer. 3 year, restarted every time drivers are replaced, fully transferable and sometimes they repair headphones even after warranty has expired.

Abyss - Drivers don't usually fail but I believe they have a modest 2 year or 1 year warranty. If your drivers fail after warranty, you are essentially screwed, it's something like $1k per driver. They also don't transfer warranty I believe.

Hifiman is decent but last I heard CS is very average, far from the stellar CS Audeze has. Also the V1 and V2 thing lmao. Audeze at least provides free LCD 4 upgrades to newer revisions, Hifiman V2 cost lower than V1 and original owners have to pay a hefty sum to get them upgraded.

I have a rough number of LCD 4 sales, PM me if you want it

 

[Roybenz]

Audeze Customer Service is indeed the best.

 

[Dobrescu George]

I actually heard only good things about Audeze's customer service as well

 

[jlbrach]

yes,audeze's customer service is second to none and adds quite a bit of value to the purchase...my 4's were just repaired and the clock restarts on the 3 year warranty...can't ask for more

 

[Slim1970]

I have to agree with everyone's sentiment about Audeze's customer support. They exchanged my 1/4" cable for a 4-pin XLR cable for my LCD-4's with no problems and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Roybenz]

I have to agree with everyone's sentiment about Audeze's customer support. They exchanged my 1/4" cable for a 4-pin XLR cable for my LCD-4's with no problems and I couldn't be happier.

They Changed mine also, and as a bonus they shipped it with DHL Express to me.

 

[miko64]

They Changed mine also, and as a bonus they shipped it with DHL Express to me.

Same here, exchanged lcd-x driver after c3yrs- really good! Got lcd4 frequency plot etc, etc

 

[Dobrescu George]

Same here, exchanged lcd-x driver after c3yrs- really good! Got lcd4 frequency plot etc, etc

Super nice!

I see a lot of happy people with Audeze's work!

I know that any product in this world can have issues, but when the company steps and and makes the situation as good as it is possible for the customer, it makes me want to keep workingh with that company.

 

[astrostar59]

Amp for the LCD4s??
I am 95% sure about me driving the LCD4. My current amp is the Metrum Aurix. Metrum states it has 2v at 33 ohms on low setting, and 6.5v at 600 ohms on high setting.

On low setting, the LCD2-C is at 2 oclock for loud listening. And at 10 oclock on high setting.

The LCD2 is 70 ohms and 101db efficient, the LCD4 is 200 ohms and 97db efficient. I am thinking the Aurix will be close to max even on high setting?

To add into the mix I am feeding the Aurix 2v line in. But my incoming DAC will have 10V! and tube line stage. In low gain I think the Aurix is just an impedance fix through step up transformers. On high setting it enables 2 fets either side of the trans to give 3x gain. I am confused about outputs in Watts and volts. If I put volts into an online watts calculator, and set 200 ohms and 1 watt it comes up with 14 volts! Audeze say for the LCD4 an amp with 1-4 watts. Seems a lot?

https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-volt-amp-calculator.html

Anyway, leeping into the dark void Ha Ha. If it screws up, I can always sell the Aurix and buy a more powerful amp? God know which one...

Here is the Aurix manual with the specs in the back. I did ask this question of Metrum, and they tested it on the LCD3 and 2 but not the later LCD4 which came out after they had designed the amp.

Odd how the weedy Chord Hugo can seemingly power the LCD4s? And the DAVE seem ok with it as well.

Here is the DAVE spec which Audeze claim is ok for the LCD4. I heard it on the DAVE last year and it seemed ok, but maybe would sound better on a 'bigger' output:
DAVE specs Which at 300ohms seem the same as my Aurix.

Headphone Output:
1% THD 6.8v RMS with 300Ω (154mW)
1% THD 6.8v RMS with 33Ω (1.4w)

 

[JLoud]

I really like my WooAudio WA5 le with my LCD-4's. Also I have a Schiit Jotenheim that has plenty of power out of the balanced out. The Woo has plenty of power at low gain, around 1 on the volume pot. High gain at 11 will make my head hurt.

 

[pippen99]

I alternate between the Woo WA5 and Cavalli Liquid Gold. Both are set on low gain with the WA5 set for high impedance.

 

[x RELIC x]

Amp for the LCD4s??
I am 95% sure about me driving the LCD4. My current amp is the Metrum Aurix. Metrum states it has 2v at 33 ohms on low setting, and 6.5v at 600 ohms on high setting.

On low setting, the LCD2-C is at 2 oclock for loud listening. And at 10 oclock on high setting.

The LCD2 is 70 ohms and 101db efficient, the LCD4 is 200 ohms and 97db efficient. I am thinking the Aurix will be close to max even on high setting?

To add into the mix I am feeding the Aurix 2v line in. But my incoming DAC will have 10V! and tube line stage. In low gain I think the Aurix is just an impedance fix through step up transformers. On high setting it enables 2 fets either side of the trans to give 3x gain. I am confused about outputs in Watts and volts. If I put volts into an online watts calculator, and set 200 ohms and 1 watt it comes up with 14 volts! Audeze say for the LCD4 an amp with 1-4 watts. Seems a lot?

https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-volt-amp-calculator.html

Anyway, leeping into the dark void Ha Ha. If it screws up, I can always sell the Aurix and buy a more powerful amp? God know which one...

Here is the Aurix manual with the specs in the back. I did ask this question of Metrum, and they tested it on the LCD3 and 2 but not the later LCD4 which came out after they had designed the amp.

Odd how the weedy Chord Hugo can seemingly power the LCD4s? And the DAVE seem ok with it as well.

Here is the DAVE spec which Audeze claim is ok for the LCD4. I heard it on the DAVE last year and it seemed ok, but maybe would sound better on a 'bigger' output:
DAVE specs Which at 300ohms seem the same as my Aurix.

Headphone Output:
1% THD 6.8v RMS with 300Ω (154mW)
1% THD 6.8v RMS with 33Ω (1.4w)

You need to input the crucial sensitivity of the headphone (dB SPL/mW, or dB SPL/V) as well as the resistance to derive the power (Current * Voltage) required to drive the transducer.

Here’s an easy calculator to figure out the power required to drive a particular headphone. All headphone calculators I’ve seen result in the same numbers. Even a well accepted speaker power calculator could be used if one could input a distance of zero. The distance is very crucial for speakers but not for headphones - ever notice how quiet the sound quickly gets when you pull the headphone off your ears while it’s playing? Hint: the majority of headphones (including the LCD-4) don’t require 1-4W, even for 120dB dynamic peaks.

http://www.digizoid.com/power.php


Here are the results for the LCD-4 (200 Ohms, 97dB SPL/mW):



Now, this is just for power required to reach a certain SPL in to a certain load and you can see that just under 200mW is needed to drive the 200 Ohm LCD-4 to the threshold of pain without distortion. It’s also easy to see that Current, which is a huge contributor to bass impact, is also not a ridiculous requirement, but I’d presume doubling the Current would be best for planar magnetic headphones, just to be safe. Still not much is required when Current is doubled, which works out to needing 395.63mW of power to reach the 120dB threshold of pain, or just 126.03mW to reach 115dB.

Amp design, tuning, and synergy will have much more impact than power output for the majority of audiophile devices. The Hugo1 (since you referenced it) will output 70mW in to 300 Ohms and a max Current of 500mA so it would have no issue reaching at least 115dB SPL with the LCD-4, but 120dB would be a struggle if you listen extremely loud.

My recommendation is not to blindly follow marketing speak for power output when spending money on amps, but rather get impressions on the tuning, sound signature, distortion performance, and output impedance/dampening once you know how much power you actually need for a given load. Using 115dB SPL should cover all listening scenarios for dynamic peaks unless one listens too loudly as hearing damage may occur. Of course YMMV and you may want a juicy 1-4W amp (I own the 9W max Liquid Gold because I like the sound not because it’s über powerful) but those are the numbers.

Edit: I should add that 1-4W may actually be required depending on the amp and the impedance load that spec is referencing. 1W in to 8 Ohms will not be fed in to 200 Ohms as the power output reduces significantly as the resistance increases. I was trying to clarify that 1W in to 200 Ohms is not required and overkill.

 

[astrostar59]

Many thanks for your time on this subject x RELIUC x, that is exactly what I was after!

And indeed the Aurix should be ok I think. Possibly if I find the funds later I can move to something bigger later if it is required.

My source should be up to the task, I have the Aries Cerat Kassandra Ref II incoming. I need to test that first to know where I am at as it has an unusually high line output of 6v or 10v. The Aurix pot is at the input so not a problem, but not sure if that applies to all headphone amps?

 

[x RELIC x]

Many thanks for your time on this subject x RELIUC x, that is exactly what I was after!

And indeed the Aurix should be ok I think. Possibly if I find the funds later I can move to something bigger later if it is required.

My source should be up to the task, I have the Aries Cerat Kassandra Ref II incoming. I need to test that first to know where I am at as it has an unusually high line output of 6v or 10v. The Aurix pot is at the input so not a problem, but not sure if that applies to all headphone amps?

No problem. It all depends on how the manufacturer lists their specs, if they do at all. 1W in to 32 Ohms will obviously be much more powerful than 1W in to 8 Ohms. Unfortunately there’s no real standard for power specs it seems.

I’m not sure what the amp’s Current limit is so it’s pretty much unknown what the output Wattage is. That said, it would be enough on high for the Voltage required, where the low gain may struggle if you like to listen to loud dynamic peaks.

 

[jlbrach]

I listen to my LCD-4 predominantly with my Chord Dave and it drives it just fine...terrific pairing as a matter of fact....hugo 2 not quite as good