[thefitz]

Having had LCD3s with the new pads, the face of the pad that rests against for face is much more rounded, particularly behind the ears where it actually felt like it has this curvature that wrapped around your heads. Traditional LCD pads are quite flat against the face.

 

[Articnoise]

Google "audeze lcd-4 new pads" and in the search results you'll see a picture of the two different pads from a forum we're not allowed to post links to.

EDIT: Or, google "New Audeze LCD series earpads - everyone should upgrade" in quotes like that. Hopefully this post doesn't get removed for posting a thread title.

Wow the difference is big. Thanks!

 

[leftside]

A few weeks ago I purchased filters from Accurate Sound for the Abyss 1266 Phi headphones. I was impressed, so sent Mitch from Accurate Sound my LCD4 so he could create filters for those as well. I'm impressed again - probably even more so with the LCD4 filters than the Abyss filters. The LCD4 are an amazing headphone, but the filters provide something different. I find the filters make everything clearer and more coherent.

Anyway, just thought I'd share for those who are interested in these types of things with Roon.

 

[THGM]

A few weeks ago I purchased filters from Accurate Sound for the Abyss 1266 Phi headphones. I was impressed, so sent Mitch from Accurate Sound my LCD4 so he could create filters for those as well. I'm impressed again - probably even more so with the LCD4 filters than the Abyss filters. The LCD4 are an amazing headphone, but the filters provide something different. I find the filters make everything clearer and more coherent.

Anyway, just thought I'd share for those who are interested in these types of things with Roon.

Thanks for sharing your impressions of the convolution filters. I had seen Chris and Mitch talk about these on the AS forum and wondered how easily they integrated with Roon. Very easily it appears! I take it the Audeze presets, which I currently use, are replaced by the convolution filters, or are they still available?

 

[leftside]

Thanks for sharing your impressions of the convolution filters. I had seen Chris and Mitch talk about these on the AS forum and wondered how easily they integrated with Roon. Very easily it appears! I take it the Audeze presets, which I currently use, are replaced by the convolution filters, or are they still available?

Yes integrate very easily with Roon. You can keep your existing convolution filters. You just need to select which ones you want to use. You can see from the screen shot I have a few for the Abyss (again from Mitch https://accuratesound.ca/).

 

[THGM]

Yes integrate very easily with Roon. You can keep your existing convolution filters. You just need to select which ones you want to use. You can see from the screen shot I have a few for the Abyss (again from Mitch https://accuratesound.ca/).

Many thanks for the clarification and link, very helpful.

 

[leftside]

Here is the article on the LCD4 and LCD5. Mitch used my LCD4 to do the comparison and create the filters.
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/audeze-lcd-4-vs-lcd-5-yin-and-yang-r1105/

 

[Kozwoz]

Here is the article on the LCD4 and LCD5. Mitch used my LCD4 to do the comparison and create the filters.
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/audeze-lcd-4-vs-lcd-5-yin-and-yang-r1105/

I’ve nearly come to the decision to sell my LCD4. I like listening to my headphones with EQ but however much I try I can’t get the LCD4 to sound right. They’re simultaneously forward in the midrange around 1k, sucked out and warm sounding around 3k-4.5k and they have waaaay to much energy verging on brightness 10k onwards. So to sum up they are forward, warm and bright and this review confirms what I’ve always been hearing.

Most problematic are the peaks around 10k and 16k and beyond, I could live with everything else. The issue is I find is I have to EQ this particular range for every individual song and listening level. Ive never had to work so hard to enjoy a headphone which costs so much.

Edit: I would just add that I wouldn’t recommend buying the convolution EQ because the frequency response would be specific to that unit that he analysed. There is a lot of unit to unit variation coupled with the fact the reviewer doesn’t mention which pad iteration he is using which would affect the frequency response considerably.

 

[thefitz]

I’ve nearly come to the decision to sell my LCD4. I like listening to my headphones with EQ but however much I try I can’t get the LCD4 to sound right. They’re simultaneously forward in the midrange around 1k, sucked out and warm sounding around 3k-4.5k and they have waaaay to much energy verging on brightness 10k onwards. So to sum up they are forward, warm and bright and this review confirms what I’ve always been hearing.

Most problematic are the peaks around 10k and 16k and beyond, I could live with everything else. The issue is I find is I have to EQ this particular range for every individual song and listening level. Ive never had to work so hard to enjoy a headphone which costs so much.

Edit: I would just add that I wouldn’t recommend buying the convolution EQ because the frequency response would be specific to that unit that he analysed. There is a lot of unit to unit variation coupled with the fact the reviewer doesn’t mention which pad iteration he is using which would affect the frequency response considerably.

I totally get it, and your tonal description was the main reason I sold my first one. However, after several rig revisions, I missed the speed and resolution and came crawling back, hah.

EDIT: Also, re: convolution filters, don't you also need one set of filters per bitrate?

 

[JLoud]

I don’t have any of the issues with the LCD4 just described. Of course my hearing is shot over 14-15k. Most people can’t hear over that by their 40’s. I use the Audeze Reveal eq and find them just right. Of course I don’t use them for all genres as I have a selection of headphones. YMMV

 

[thefitz]

I don’t have any of the issues with the LCD4 just described. Of course my hearing is shot over 14-15k. Most people can’t hear over that by their 40’s. I use the Audeze Reveal eq and find them just right. Of course I don’t use them for all genres as I have a selection of headphones. YMMV

They published the EQ curves of the Audeze Reveal plugin for the LCD-4, and it's basically boosting up 4kHz and I believe a slight reduction at 1kHz.

Those general FR complaints apply to pretty much all Audeze products above the LCD-1 and below LCD-5 - there's some honk around 1-2kHz, 2-10kHz is fairly tame, a lot of energy past 10kHz, and a bit of a divebomb around 4kHz. I think the LCD-4 might have been "worst" for this because the speed and resolution were so high that they stuck out more.

I think the worst offender for that was the Audeze LCD-XC (pre-2021 revision anyway) - it had the same midrange honk about twice as bad, and a treble profile that was akin to watching a concert outside in broad daylight. All the bad parts of the LCD-4 (maybe no 4kHz scoop), but none of the speed and resolution.

EDIT: Here are the EQ curves of Reveal - my memory of the LCD-4 curve is correct: https://imgur.com/a/MFLnI

 

[Kozwoz]

I don’t have any of the issues with the LCD4 just described. Of course my hearing is shot over 14-15k. Most people can’t hear over that by their 40’s. I use the Audeze Reveal eq and find them just right. Of course I don’t use them for all genres as I have a selection of headphones. YMMV

The way the headphone is tuned beyond 15k will affect what you do hear though. Harmonic content is distributed. But if you truly can’t hear how messed up it is and it doesn’t bother you then I envy you.

 

[thefitz]

Are you saying the new pads affect the speed and resolution but address the 4khz scoop? Sorry not sure how to read your last sentence. Are there any sonic drawbacks to the new pads?

What’s frustrating is that I mix and master for a living and I can clearly hear the problem areas but I can’t seem to fix my LCD4 with EQ. It just ends up sounding unnatural.

Sorry, that was a typo - should have read "all the bad parts". There are new pads, but I don't know if they fix that dip. Pretty much every LCD I've seen since Fazors started has it (even the ones without Fazors), until the LCD-5.

I don't know if anyone remembers or has seen this, but there was great controversy on Innerfidelity when the LCD-4 and Utopia both came out. Tyll skewered the LCD-4 for the treble quirks described above (to which Audeze made several official responses), and Focal sent him a rigged Utopia which was just about the best headphone ever made but not representative of any other unit ever (whether this was deliberate or not is unknown).

Once the dust settled on that, he brought in Bob Katz to check out those headphones. He took an intense liking to the LCD-4, comparing it to a six-figure treated-room speaker setup. He said the speakers were better, but the LCD-4 wasn't even that far off and the fact that you could even compare them was amazing in his mind. He then brought in a team of audio engineers under his tutelage to compare the two headphones, with all of them preferring the LCD-4 in pretty much every way.
https://www.stereophile.com/content...-13-big-shootout-audeze-lcd-4-vs-focal-utopia
https://www.stereophile.com/content...teners-shoot-out-audeze-lcd-4-vs-focal-utopia

I cannot deny the tonal quirks you indicated, and was in your seat saying I was giving up on those headphones. But something pulled me back, and I haven't regretted it yet.

I did own a pair of LCD-XCs and LCD-4s at the same time, and apples to apples, I felt that the LCD-4 was a better value at both new and used price points than the LCD-XC. I get why the LCD-4 was $4k, and feel was over twice the headphone as the LCD-XC at $1800. Used, the LCD-4 had more going for it at $2k than the LCD-XC did at $800.

 

[the1andonly]

Sorry, that was a typo - should have read "all the bad parts". There are new pads, but I don't know if they fix that dip. Pretty much every LCD I've seen since Fazors started has it (even the ones without Fazors), until the LCD-5.

I don't know if anyone remembers or has seen this, but there was great controversy on Innerfidelity when the LCD-4 and Utopia both came out. Tyll skewered the LCD-4 for the treble quirks described above (to which Audeze made several official responses), and Focal sent him a rigged Utopia which was just about the best headphone ever made but not representative of any other unit ever (whether this was deliberate or not is unknown).

Once the dust settled on that, he brought in Bob Katz to check out those headphones. He took an intense liking to the LCD-4, comparing it to a six-figure treated-room speaker setup. He said the speakers were better, but the LCD-4 wasn't even that far off and the fact that you could even compare them was amazing in his mind. He then brought in a team of audio engineers under his tutelage to compare the two headphones, with all of them preferring the LCD-4 in pretty much every way.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/katz’s-corner-episode-13-big-shootout-audeze-lcd-4-vs-focal-utopia
https://www.stereophile.com/content/katz’s-corner-episode-14-guest-listeners-shoot-out-audeze-lcd-4-vs-focal-utopia

I cannot deny the tonal quirks you indicated, and was in your seat saying I was giving up on those headphones. But something pulled me back, and I haven't regretted it yet.

I did own a pair of LCD-XCs and LCD-4s at the same time, and apples to apples, I felt that the LCD-4 was a better value at both new and used price points than the LCD-XC. I get why the LCD-4 was $4k, and feel was over twice the headphone as the LCD-XC at $1800. Used, the LCD-4 had more going for it at $2k than the LCD-XC did at $800.

Crazily enough, the LCD-4 was gimped too

"After Bob's experiments, Focal asked if InnerFidelity could measure the Utopias used in the shootout to see if they were defective in some way. His evaluations also confused me because I thought the Focals clearly superior. I had Bob send me the headphones used in his shootout for measurements. Turns out, the pair used in my review and his shootout indeed did measure differently and in such a way that our disparate findings were understandable. Bob wrote about it in his Smoking Gun article.

I then had to find out which Utopia was representative of the currently produced product and measured numerous Utopias. I found that the pair I initially reviewed was not representative of current product; the pair used in Bob's evaluation was.

Additionally, it was found the LCD-4 Bob used in his efforts was faulty in one channel and the pair I reviewed had some modest tonal imbalances between channels. I think this likely added some confusion in evaluations."

https://web.archive.org/web/2019051...ame-adjustments-focal-utopia-and-audeze-lcd-4

 

[Fibre101]

The way the headphone is tuned beyond 15k will affect what you do hear though. Harmonic content is distributed. But if you truly can’t hear how messed up it is and it doesn’t bother you then I envy you.

My I ask what Dac and amp combo and source your using? I had the same issue of EQing the LCD 4 and loving some parts of the lcd 4 FR while not liking others. I am somewhat of a bass head so I'd probably prefer the lcd 4 to the 5s having not heard the 5's. I upgraded my source to an Audio gd di 20 with ocxo, got the 2021 pads and added a powerplant and while it hasnt fixed absolutely everything, it does fix many or most things like lifting the veil in return giving the lcd 4 a very balanced sound and better image and sound stage. YMMV. It is a bit unfortunate that almost every high end headphone needs a good backbone to make them perform the way they are intended to. After these upgrades and a bit of tweaking in terms of EQ, Im more than satisfied.