[the1andonly]

Interesting. I believe you're the first to claim sound degradation using eq on LCD5. You must have supersonic hearing.
Can anyone else corroborate?

I don't EQ. I know others who don't and cite sound quality. I see no reason why the LCD-5 is somehow special that it differs from all other headphones. You much have eagle sight to see what makes it so special, or perhaps x ray vision? Otherwise this question can as easily be answered by a search as it has been answered many times over.

 

[EMINENT]

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 "

How would you know I don't believe dacs sound different? I haven't come to that conclusion yet and haven't even tried enough of others to form an opinion yet.

I don't EQ. I know others who don't and cite sound quality. I see no reason why the LCD-5 is somehow special that it differs from all other headphones. You much have eagle sight to see what makes it so special, or perhaps x ray vision? Otherwise this question can as easily be answered by a search as it has been answered many times over.

Just curious what adrianm is specifically hearing that is degraded. I am really curious. Of the few sources I have tried with and without eq, the eq'd option always sounds tonaly better and I cannot hear any specific qualities of degradation in comparison. It sounds better every time.

Maybe if you or someone can tell me what to notice or look out for, I can try to pick it out too.

 

[adrianm]

How would you know I don't believe dacs sound different? I haven't come to that conclusion yet and haven't even tried enough of others to form an opinion yet.

Well you did post it a while back, but our opinions evolve over time. I started out believing everything was snake oil, I wasn't able to hear a lot of the stuff some people were talking about and just wrote them off as snobs and elitists. Which they are , but that doesn't make them wrong sadly and I cringe sometime at stuff I posted starting out.
As I got better gear I started to notice differences made by clean power, better cables, better sources, etc. Some of the stuff people claimed were better were actually worse, but the point was that there was a difference. And that stuff is so overpriced I wonder if they make the cheap stuff bad on purpose.
I'm not saying this is the case with EQ in general, maybe my dac's topology plays a part in it, but what I did hear was degradation in soundstage depth and the overall image clarity, not tonality, which was clearly improved by EQ. As much as I doubted it would initially.
For context, if I plug in the M-scaler into the mains and/or use an usb or coaxial connection to the streamer, it sounds considerably worse than using a battery and optical cable to the streamer to isolate it from the mains. People have debated why this happens to death, but basically once you isolate RF noise from the mains and other components from your dac, it will sound much better. This is true with other dacs as well though.
The best way I can put it is that the degradation sounded like I was undoing these improvements. Which should not be required at the price point Chord's selling this gear, but it is what it is.
I'm super curious about the Mojo 2's claimed "world's first lossless EQ" and can't wait for it to make it to an eventual Chord flagship, but that doesn't change the fact that when you're buying a headphone, you're also paying for tuning.
Now if you'll excuse me while I take my tinfoil hat off...

 

[chargedcapacitor]

", but that doesn't change the fact that when you're buying a headphone, you're also paying for tuning."

I partially disagree; when you buy a high end headphone, you are paying primarily for technical performance. There are several affordably priced headphones that have great tuning.

Audeze specifically mentioned this when they came out with the LCD-4 line, and also recently when they introduced the LCD-5. Not everyone will like this tactic, but it's the road they chose to go down.

 

[the1andonly]

I partially disagree; when you buy a high end headphone, you are paying primarily for technical performance. There are several affordably priced headphones that have great tuning.

Audeze specifically mentioned this when they came out with the LCD-4 line, and also recently when they introduced the LCD-5. Not everyone will like this tactic, but it's the road they chose to go down.

I am just a double winner because I actually love Audeze's house tuning for both the LCD-3 and LCD-4. I know a lot of people cannot stand it apparently but I love it, doubt I would have ever EQ'ed something else to this or bought it otherwise if I just went team harman... totally not bragging btw I know I am lucky and hope everyone finds something amazing, just thought I would share my thoughts... and yes I fully agree with that posted, you pay for 1. performance 2. driver or technological advantages that help sound, perhaps timbre or soundstaging/layering etc..... I do think some pretty dang decent tuning comes along with it for the most part though, with stuff like Susvara it's a home run but in the end an amazing performing headphone will sell high, one with just great tuning won't sell as high....

Is this the way that it should be? I don't know I would have to think on that, but that is the market and we kind of have to accept the market is in some respects "always right"

 

[chargedcapacitor]

I am just a double winner because I actually love Audeze's house tuning for both the LCD-3 and LCD-4. I know a lot of people stand it apparently but I love it, doubt I would have ever EQ'ed something else to this or bought it otherwise if I just went team harman

Yeah, my partner loved the LCD-X and 4 tuning but I hated it. Everyone's ears are different!

 

[adrianm]

I partially disagree; when you buy a high end headphone, you are paying primarily for technical performance. There are several affordably priced headphones that have great tuning.

Audeze specifically mentioned this when they came out with the LCD-4 line, and also recently when they introduced the LCD-5. Not everyone will like this tactic, but it's the road they chose to go down.

It depends how you quantify "technical performance" i guess. Sure, the LCD-5 is faster than most and has laser like precision, but with not so great imaging and soundstage imo. I found the gap in those areas larger in favor of the Elite than the 5's advantage in speed.
The thing i loved most about the LCD-5 was the extreme clarity, even if i didn't care much for the tonality. However when EQ-ing, that clarity went away, even if it did fix the weird imaging somewhat and the tonality.
Whether that was due to the EQ itself, or Audeze actually knowing how to tune their own headphone than random reviewers, I can't say. That said, when spending this much money there should be some build quality and comfort considerations that were a bit of a miss.

 

[chargedcapacitor]

It depends how you quantify "technical performance" i guess. Sure, the LCD-5 is faster than most and has laser like precision, but with not so great imaging and soundstage imo. I found the gap in those areas larger in favor of the Elite than the 5's advantage in speed.
The thing i loved most about the LCD-5 was the extreme clarity, even if i didn't care much for the tonality. However when EQ-ing, that clarity went away, even if it did fix the weird imaging somewhat and the tonality.
Whether that was due to the EQ itself, or Audeze actually knowing how to tune their own headphone than random reviewers, I can't say. That said, when spending this much money there should be some build quality and comfort considerations that were a bit of a miss.

I agree the soundstage is a bit intimate, but it so much deeper than most other TOTL headphones. I find that it images, or what I call imaging, very well. I use the RME Adi as my EQ source, as well as the Pro iCan for the bass boost, and I don't hear any loss in quality. If anything, it greatly expands on the clarity. But EQ past 2khz is a very personal endeavor.

 

[EMINENT]

Well you did post it a while back, but our opinions evolve over time. I started out believing everything was snake oil, I wasn't able to hear a lot of the stuff some people were talking about and just wrote them off as snobs and elitists. Which they are , but that doesn't make them wrong sadly and I cringe sometime at stuff I posted starting out.
As I got better gear I started to notice differences made by clean power, better cables, better sources, etc. Some of the stuff people claimed were better were actually worse, but the point was that there was a difference. And that stuff is so overpriced I wonder if they make the cheap stuff bad on purpose.
I'm not saying this is the case with EQ in general, maybe my dac's topology plays a part in it, but what I did hear was degradation in soundstage depth and the overall image clarity, not tonality, which was clearly improved by EQ. As much as I doubted it would initially.
For context, if I plug in the M-scaler into the mains and/or use an usb or coaxial connection to the streamer, it sounds considerably worse than using a battery and optical cable to the streamer to isolate it from the mains. People have debated why this happens to death, but basically once you isolate RF noise from the mains and other components from your dac, it will sound much better. This is true with other dacs as well though.
The best way I can put it is that the degradation sounded like I was undoing these improvements. Which should not be required at the price point Chord's selling this gear, but it is what it is.
I'm super curious about the Mojo 2's claimed "world's first lossless EQ" and can't wait for it to make it to an eventual Chord flagship, but that doesn't change the fact that when you're buying a headphone, you're also paying for tuning.
Now if you'll excuse me while I take my tinfoil hat off...

Ahh, you are probably referring to my post when I tried the M15 in USB DAC mode vs. WA7's internal dac. I remember I didn't notice a difference with that comparison but I didn't write off the possibility altogether. I haven't heard much of anything really to come to any conclusion yet.

Fair enough, I can't argue what you are hearing with your chain and setup.
All I know is I cannot hear this clarity loss with it on or off in my setup so far. I also don't notice any soundstage differences in my tests, but I will listen again and see if I can spot them.

What did you mean by this though? "In this case Roon is doing eq, sends it to the M-scaler for upsampling, after which it's EQ'd again before output." Roon should only be doing eq once. Are you referring to crossfeed? Were you doing eq and crossfeed both?

*Sidenote about soundstage: I am still not sold on this feature of headphones. What is correct soundstage though? Does anyone really know? Is the goal to mimic speakers 30, 50 or 70 degrees, a concert a few rows back, on stage, front row?
This is just artificial to me and not something I can positively say matters at all. If it's out of your head at the most extreme example, is everything just sounding hard panned left and right to give that effect and should that be something I want? I will never know how the recording was done, if it was in a studio or in live venue. Even watching live concerts using headphones has me puzzled about where from the stage I am, as a sound on the left could be heard on the right and vice versa and then other times the two on opposite sides of each other could come from one channel.

 

[the1andonly]

Hmm.... found this is my amp's manual

Tip: Sonically-hindering DSP is NOT used for XBass® Plus nor 3D® Matrix Plus systems. They use the highest-quality discrete components and operate purely in the analogue domain. Hence all the clarity and resolution of the original music is retained.

Seems some of geniuses behind the products have put a word in on whether it might be possible to have negative side effects....

 

[EMINENT]

Hmm.... found this is my amp's manual

Tip: Sonically-hindering DSP is NOT used for XBass® Plus nor 3D® Matrix Plus systems. They use the highest-quality discrete components and operate purely in the analogue domain. Hence all the clarity and resolution of the original music is retained.

Seems some of geniuses behind the products have put a word in on whether it might be possible to have negative side effects....

Been there, done that. I have the iCan Sig and can't tell any difference in xbass setting 2 compared to a bass shelf through peq.

 

[the1andonly]

Been there, done that. I have the iCan Sig and can't tell any difference in xbass setting 2 compared to a bass shelf through peq.

 

[cantara256]

Hmm.... found this is my amp's manual

Tip: Sonically-hindering DSP is NOT used for XBass® Plus nor 3D® Matrix Plus systems. They use the highest-quality discrete components and operate purely in the analogue domain. Hence all the clarity and resolution of the original music is retained.

Seems some of geniuses behind the products have put a word in on whether it might be possible to have negative side effects....

You might want to check out PGGB: https://www.remastero.com/pggb.html

It's basically a Chord Hugo M Scaler on steroids (no, not a Chord product). Preprocesses and upscales files to 705/768 kHz, using billions of taps, with your EQ convolution filter of choice. The resulting WAV files are one or two gigabytes large but can play without any further processing on any player.

It's batch job processing so audio streams are out (don't throw away the HMS!). Though it requires convolution filters rather than parametric EQ profiles, it's easy to convert from PEQ to convolution via REW; I use a slightly modified version of Resolve's EQ which I'm happy to share.

It's free to try but expensive to buy since it's very niche. However you are only limited to how much you can upscale and how many taps you can use by your CPU and RAM bottlenecks.

Discussion thread here: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62699-a-toast-to-pggb-a-heady-brew-of-math-and-magic/

 

[TheFrator]

You might want to check out PGGB: https://www.remastero.com/pggb.html

It's basically a Chord Hugo M Scaler on steroids (no, not a Chord product). Preprocesses and upscales files to 705/768 kHz, using billions of taps, with your EQ convolution filter of choice. The resulting WAV files are one or two gigabytes large but can play without any further processing on any player.

It's batch job processing so audio streams are out (don't throw away the HMS!). Though it requires convolution filters rather than parametric EQ profiles, it's easy to convert from PEQ to convolution via REW; I use a slightly modified version of Resolve's EQ which I'm happy to share.

It's free to try but expensive to buy since it's very niche. However you are only limited to how much you can upscale and how many taps you can use by your CPU and RAM bottlenecks.

Discussion thread here: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/62699-a-toast-to-pggb-a-heady-brew-of-math-and-magic/

This is going to send me down a huge rabbit hole so thank you for sharing! Doubt I'll use it since I listen to all my music from a local hard drive of 16bit 44.1 FLAC files and don't really have the space to keep all these as GB sized files haha

 

[cantara256]

This is going to send me down a huge rabbit hole so thank you for sharing! Doubt I'll use it since I listen to all my music from a local hard drive of 16bit 44.1 FLAC files and don't really have the space to keep all these as GB sized files haha

SanDisk portable 2TB SSD drives are around $200, and they fit in your pocket.