BowWazoo
Member of the Trade: Cable Builder
Post in thread 'Audeze LCD-5 Review, Measurements, Interview' https://www.head-fi.org/threads/audeze-lcd-5-review-measurements-interview.959808/post-16824383
Audeze LCD-5 Review, Measurements, Interview
- Thread starter jude
- Start date
Thanks for sharing! Reminds me of why I purchased these in the first place. As a highly technical performer that is very rewarding to those who aren't afraid of tweaking with some form of tone control.
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cantara256
100+ Head-Fier
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Great review! Do you mind sharing which EQ you are using, and which tubes you preferred with the MHA200?
tawmizzzz
1000+ Head-Fier
Decided to get a partner for the LCD5s, and I should have heeded the advice on how much power the Susvaras truly require. They do sound quite good out of the Wells Audio Dragon, but the occasional sibilance, anemic bass along with a rather intimate staging give me the impression that it still has a lot of room to scale. Meanwhile, the Dragon synergy with LCD5 is off the charts.
Now, do I continue AMP-rolling (Enleum 23r or Ferrum OOR/Hypsos perhaps) or just have LCD5s stay single? Questions, questions.
Decided to get a partner for the LCD5s, and I should have heeded the advice on how much power the Susvaras truly require. They do sound quite good out of the Wells Audio Dragon, but the occasional sibilance, anemic bass along with a rather intimate staging give me the impression that it still has a lot of room to scale. Meanwhile, the Dragon synergy with LCD5 is off the charts.
Now, do I continue AMP-rolling (Enleum 23r or Ferrum OOR/Hypsos perhaps) or just have LCD5s stay single? Questions, questions.
If the Ferrum stack is good with Susvara, i'd at least get it and see which one sounds best. Unless you just have money to burn, then I would get both and share your findings with the commuity.
Buy both. Compare. Keep winner.Now, do I continue AMP-rolling (Enleum 23r or Ferrum OOR/Hypsos perhaps) or just have LCD5s stay single? Questions, questions.
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How it started...
I might share some impressions on the Elite thread later if anyone's interested. Needles to say, after 4 days of comparisons, my impressions didn't align with a lot of reviewers. Highly recommend having them side by side when comparing. As with anything in this hobby.
How it's going...Well this is not the impression I've had when I had them individually for home auditions, but having them side by side, the Elite is winning big time for me
I might share some impressions on the Elite thread later if anyone's interested. Needles to say, after 4 days of comparisons, my impressions didn't align with a lot of reviewers. Highly recommend having them side by side when comparing. As with anything in this hobby.
TheFrator
100+ Head-Fier
Had to get a new pair of Elites I seeHow it started...
How it's going...
I might share some impressions on the Elite thread later if anyone's interested. Needles to say, after 4 days of comparisons, my impressions didn't align with a lot of reviewers. Highly recommend having them side by side when comparing. As with anything in this hobby.
That's how much I loved themHad to get a new pair of Elites I see
The upgrade silver plated cable also made a big difference. I would've gotten it for the LCD-5 as well, if I had went down that route.
Volote
Head-Fier
The thing that perks my interest on the elites is that it doesn’t try to be detail perfect. This would make recordings much more smooth and forgiving in my head.How it started...
How it's going...
I might share some impressions on the Elite thread later if anyone's interested. Needles to say, after 4 days of comparisons, my impressions didn't align with a lot of reviewers. Highly recommend having them side by side when comparing. As with anything in this hobby.
Yes, it is more smooth than the LCD-5, but not overly so. I also didn't find the Elites lacking in technicalities in comparison. The LCD-5 were a bit faster, but sounded a bit bass light in my chain and a lot more congested. They were also more aggressive, and they ended up being fatiguing after a while.
Elites had a wider and much deeper soundstage, with great bass and are just a really relaxing listen. 2 days in and I was barely reaching for LCD-5. They're great technically just...not as enjoyable for me.
EQ did help (Roon), but there was a very clear degradation in sound quality and by that point there was an even bigger delta in sq. I wish the LCD-5 had the EQ'd tuning out of the box.
Interesting. I believe you're the first to claim sound degradation using eq on LCD5. You must have supersonic hearing.
Can anyone else corroborate?
It's not an LCD-5 thing, plenty of people don't EQ for that reason. Dave also already does EQ for the crossfeed setting, which some users also claim slightly degrade the sound. I can't hear that degradation for the life of me.
In this case Roon is doing eq, sends it to the M-scaler for upsampling ,after which it's EQ'd again before output. I've tried disabling the crossfeed but it didn't help much.
I know you don't believe dacs sound any different so I don't expect or intend to convince you. Just like I don't expect to convince people that the stock cables on most headphones are bad and degrade the sound. It's not that the upgraded ones are magic. The Elites one is especially bad imo, but the LCD-5 isn't far off. Only way I can explain why the silver plated Meze cable provides so much more clarity.
It's not that i have supersonic hearing, it just sounds like i got robbed and someone replaced my cables with those "coat hangers that sound just as good "
chargedcapacitor
500+ Head-Fier
I don't use Roon, but there are a bunch of ways EQ can degrade the SQ. The most obvious is clipping; if you boost one area without lowering the pre-amp, you can get clipping. You can also have degraded SQ if the sample rate of the EQ software is not (much) higher than the sample rate of the signal being EQ'd. But this is mostly a thing of the past; modern software handles this with no issue.
However, the most likely scenario for why someone may say the EQ "degrades" the SQ is when someone does not properly set up their tests, usually by not properly volume matching, or by adding too much boost in certain regions that should not have boost. For example, bosting the 200-400hz region too much will create a lot of "bloat", and boosting the 750-1500hz region too much will add "fuzzyness" to the sound.
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