[johnzz4]

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.

Who makes that cable?

 

[Eric510]

On this NYC CanJam eve, I've fallen back in love with my LCD-4.
I decided to give them a good listen before heading to the jam tomorrow morning and, here I am 5 hours later still listening. It had been a while since I last listen to them and, man... I sure do love these cans.
Just felt the need to share.

 

[Audio-Phile]

I will also chime in about the lack of fatigue - I'm extremely sensitive to this, and I can say without a doubt the LCD4s are less fatiguing than any audio experience I've ever had, live or reproduced. And combined with the actual sound quality - this is worth almost any price. I truly do love them.

So no one has a quantitative, mathematically rigourous answer on why I can quite clearly push the LCD4s far past the clipping point with my Mojo? Not trying to be snarky, signal processing interests me a great deal and I'm trying to learn. However this is not a "power quality" issue. The power simply isn't there. The dynamic range rapidly decreases past the clipping point, for seconds at a time (no longer, as I don't feel like doing damage) you can quite easily push it to the point where it's just a staticky, clipping mess.

Anyone here want to chime in about the Milo? I know some have already. Reading the Milo thread, this sounds like about the best amp money can buy, especially for the money, and especially for planars. I've suddenly become very interested.

 

[rgs9200m]

I'm finding that the LCD4 seems extremely sensitive to cable changes. I tried about half a dozen and all are quite different sounding. As noted earlier, the Norne Draug2 is the clear winner so far.

 

[jlbrach]

On this NYC CanJam eve, I've fallen back in love with my LCD-4.
I decided to give them a good listen before heading to the jam tomorrow morning and, here I am 5 hours later still listening. It had been a while since I last listen to them and, man... I sure do love these cans.
Just felt the need to share.

I totally agree,these are truly outstanding HP's...btw i was at camjam today

 

[Boerd]

I will also chime in about the lack of fatigue - I'm extremely sensitive to this, and I can say without a doubt the LCD4s are less fatiguing than any audio experience I've ever had, live or reproduced. And combined with the actual sound quality - this is worth almost any price. I truly do love them.

So no one has a quantitative, mathematically rigourous answer on why I can quite clearly push the LCD4s far past the clipping point with my Mojo? Not trying to be snarky, signal processing interests me a great deal and I'm trying to learn. However this is not a "power quality" issue. The power simply isn't there. The dynamic range rapidly decreases past the clipping point, for seconds at a time (no longer, as I don't feel like doing damage) you can quite easily push it to the point where it's just a staticky, clipping mess.

Anyone here want to chime in about the Milo? I know some have already. Reading the Milo thread, this sounds like about the best amp money can buy, especially for the money, and especially for planars. I've suddenly become very interested.

​Given the Mojo will clip at around 109 db SPL with the LCD-4 you should watch your hearing. Normal listening level should be 80-90 db SPL (should be 80 for people with intact hearing) and that is 0.15 Vrms to 0.5 Vrms for LCD-4. That's far from clipping Mojo. The only way someone gets Mojo to clip at "normal" listening level is when they have substantial hearing damage and 105-110 is their "normal" listening level. There are too many measurements of the Mojo in the wild showing it doesn't clip until 4.5 Vrms (1% THD + noise) and at 4VRms or less is cleaner than most other dacs (0.00017% THD + noise at 3Vrms). LCD-4 is an easy to drive headphone. For example is easier to drive the LCD-4 than the 600 ohm version of the Beyer DT 880: LCD-4 needs 0.5 Vrms while DT 880 needs 0.9 Vrms for the same 90 db SPL.
 
For people who keep saying they hear Mojo clip with LCD-4:
1. Clipping is defined  as 1% THD + noise. Clipping happens when the amp runs out of juice and it is a fairly sharp showing, the amp goes from let's say 0.0001% to 1% within a few fractions of V rms (the case for Mojo)
2. Before clipping, the Mojo takes the LCD-4 to 109 db SPL. That is way louder than a jackhammer at 1m (that is 100 db SPL) - it is the equivalent of a non-electric chainsaw at 1 meter. Think again - at that SPL level your ears should "clip" and report false impressions .
3. An iPhone can put out 1V rms before reaching max at around 0.002% THD + noise(Apple doesn't allow it to clip). At that level the LCD-4 is at more than 90db SPL. BTW 0.002% THD + noise is way below the human threshold for detecting distortion.

 

[Audio-Phile]

I get the math, I do. But it makes no sense to me. I do like to listen loud, but my hearing is no way damaged. In fact I often hear things that others don't in ambient environments. I've been like this since I was a kid, I love listening to music at loud volumes, find it hard to listen at low volumes. But, again, I wouldn't say the level at which it "clips" is necessarily that loud.

Just for fun I did plug the LCD4s straight into my iPad Pro and iPhone 7 Plus - both can produce sound but certainly not at what I would consider a listenable volume level. Sure didn't seem like 90 dB to me...are my ears messed up? Couldn't tell you. All I know is that I have no hearing problems that I'm aware of, but that I also listen to music at extremely high volume levels.

Also, maybe this will help flesh this topic out - at the clipping point and beyond, the LCD4 still is loud and gets louder...at max volume on the mojo, it is too loud to listen to, for sure. It is absolutely painful. But there is almost no dynamic range at all, almost every frequency outside of a very narrow range clips badly...it's not as if the absolute sound pressure level isn't there, it is...but only for a very narrow frequency range...one that gets logarithmically smaller as you increase the volume level past a certain point.

 

[Boerd]

I get the math, I do. But it makes no sense to me. I do like to listen loud, but my hearing is no way damaged. In fact I often hear things that others don't in ambient environments. I've been like this since I was a kid, I love listening to music at loud volumes, find it hard to listen at low volumes. But, again, I wouldn't say the level at which it "clips" is necessarily that loud.

Just for fun I did plug the LCD4s straight into my iPad Pro and iPhone 7 Plus - both can produce sound but certainly not at what I would consider a listenable volume level. Sure didn't seem like 90 dB to me...are my ears messed up? Couldn't tell you. All I know is that I have no hearing problems that I'm aware of, but that I also listen to music at extremely high volume levels.

Also, maybe this will help flesh this topic out - at the clipping point and beyond, the LCD4 still is loud and gets louder...at max volume on the mojo, it is too loud to listen to, for sure. It is absolutely painful. But there is almost no dynamic range at all, almost every frequency outside of a very narrow range clips badly...it's not as if the absolute sound pressure level isn't there, it is...but only for a very narrow frequency range...one that gets logarithmically smaller as you increase the volume level past a certain point.

​You must be detecting something but I dare saying it isn't the clipping. Some other artifact probably?
At high levels of course there isn't much dynamics left - at 105 db SPL you have about 5db SPL (decent headroom) while at 109-110 you have (almost) nothing but distortion left for headroom.
So you are correct if you say at very loud levels there isn't much dynamics left but at normal or even loud there is plenty headroom left.
All I am saying here is - you must be hearing / detecting some other artifact. Probably I am too zealous with the terms...
Just fyi - my listening level is between red and green depending on recording. I don't like the music louder than that.

 

[mulder01]

I'm assuming the bass distorts before other frequencies - On my portable, if I play a really low bass heavy song it can distort at -6db (one quarter of it's rated output), but I can push vocals to twice that volume with no problem...

Like I said before, I don't think the quoted measurements are flat across the board. Easiest way to see if something is gonna sound good is to listen to it!

 

[Boerd]

When thinking of buying the next powerfull headphone amplifier please note that according to NIOSH​ long term exposure to more than 85 db SPL is likely to cause hearing damage defeating the purpose of being an audiophile. Mojo will have 24 db SPL left in the tank at that point on the LCD-4. Yes - 24 db SPL headroom.
To hear Mojo clip you have to put the LCD-4 at 109 db SPL - in less than 2 minutes that means hearing damage (NIOSH). The exposure time goes fast with the db SPL.

 

[Boerd]

I'm assuming the bass distorts before other frequencies - On my portable, if I play a really low bass heavy song it can distort at -6db (one quarter of it's rated output), but I can push vocals to twice that volume with no problem...

Like I said before, I don't think the quoted measurements are flat across the board. Easiest way to see if something is gonna sound good is to listen to it!

​If you look at the graph of LCD-4 you see 2 things:
 
1. frequency response - you will see that LCD-4 is flat from 10Hz to 2 kHz. That's all that matters so no - you don't need more voltage / energy for lower frequencies.
2. THD + noise is not higher at lower frequencies. That's the whole point of planar headphones (and estats).
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudezeLCD4.pdf
 
On your portable - I can't comment but bass heavy stuff should not distort first. In fact you notice bass distortion last on Mojo.

 

[mulder01]

So you have the LCD-4 and Mojo and don't hear any clipping or distortion at all?

 

[mulder01]

 
​If you look at the graph of LCD-4 you see 2 things:
 
1. frequency response - you will see that LCD-4 is flat from 10Hz to 2 kHz. That's all that matters so no - you don't need more voltage / energy for lower frequencies.
2. THD + noise is not higher at lower frequencies. That's the whole point of planar headphones (and estats).
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudezeLCD4.pdf
 
On your portable - I can't comment but bass heavy stuff should not distort first. In fact you notice bass distortion last on Mojo.

 
I invite you to come and have a listen to it.

 

[Boerd]

​My ears will bleed way before that. I listen under 85db - red color. I tried going to blue (3 V) =  and it is painful. At that point I can't really focus on the music - my ears tell me to turn it down immediately.

 

[Boerd]

   
I invite you to come and have a listen to it.

​Thank you! Quite a few decent guys on this forum. I will rest my case about Mojo - I am not looking to upset anybody with my ideas. This is a hobbyist's site and I respect that. I enjoy being part of it so I will stop my postings on this subject (out of respect for others). And of course - I can be mistaking... It has happened to me before