[number1sixerfan]

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.

Technical performance definitely overlaps with 'tuning' as manufacturers decide on the end product. There are tradeoff decisions at each and every point.

If people want to EQ the LCD-5 that's totally cool, but there isn't some unique reason that makes it (EQ with it vs other headphones) special imo.

 

[BowWazoo]

...when you buy a high end headphone, you are paying primarily for technical performance...

+1,
for me, the frequency response does not play a role in the purchase.
Starting point for me is the Harman curve, then comes a "personalization".
Also the THD, I would not overestimate. Namely, I have already made A / B comparisons, where the headphones, with significantly worse THD, has sounded "cleaner".

 

[KMann]

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.

On a resolving setup, it is (in my experience) quite possible to hear differences in the quality of EQ. There is more than one way (actually, infinite ways) to achieve the same tonal changes using DSP, but not all of them are created equal. Some of the factors to consider are (not in any particular order):

• Headroom: Real-time EQ needs a fixed gain adjustment (generally in the negative direction) to avoid clipping, depending on the nature of EQ, it is easy to lose 6 to 12 dB in headroom. This means one will have to increase the volume of the amp to compensate hence stressing the amp (if it does not have a whole lot left to work with).
• Dynamic range: This is related to the fixed gain adjustment to avoid clipping too. If one needs to apply a fixed digital gain, the worst-case scenario is you lose that much of dynamic range, which means there is increased signal to noise ratio and it could impact clarity among other things. Though there are ways to reduce this effect this, it depends on implementation by taking extra care to process the signals at higher bit-depth then possibly dither before sending it to the DAC.
• Precision: Extra care needs to be taken in how the filters are implemented (be it IIR or FIR) to avoid additional noise introduced by the filtering engine due to precision and arithmetic.
• Phase: I am a biased toward linear phase filters as I feel, when properly implemented, they produce least harm and keep the clarity, imaging precision and transparency intact. Linear phase filters ensure all frequencies arrive at the same time without relative delays and this is needed to properly replicate transients. For headphones I prefer linear phase FIR to other implementations.
• Sample rate conversion: Often times, in the case of FIR (convolution) filters, the filters are implemented for a single rate and the filtering engine rate converts either the input signal or the filter to match the output sampling rate. this conversion process is bad if one desires the best signal quality.

My post is not meant to scare folks away from using any EQ, but to be aware that like everything else in this hobby, EQ too should not just be taken for granted. Many do not want to touch EQ for philosophical reasons, and many avoid it because they have had bad experience with it before and your experience will vary based on your sensitivity to the factors above.

To address some of the issues I cited, we offer Audeze presets for Roon as both linear and minimum phase filters, we bundle filters for all sample rates to avoid sample rate conversions, Roon processes them as 64bit doubles, and I believe dithers the output.

When choosing to use EQ, equal attention needs to be played to the quality of plugin or the filtering engine, offline filtering is also a good option if the filtering engine addresses the concerns.

 

[BowWazoo]

Neutron Player rules

 

[MRHiFiReviews]

Great review! Do you mind sharing which EQ you are using, and which tubes you preferred with the MHA200?

I am not a big EQ user personally. However, if I do play with EQ a bit it is through Roon. Like I said in the video, I prefer system matching, tube amplification in general, or tone control over EQ. I did play with EQ via Roon and found the LCD-5 took moderate adjustments very well. A few of you have commented about the Elite vs. the LCD-5 so I will post up both videos as my Elite video does quite a few sound comparisons including songs I used.





Oh, and the tubes I am using are IBM-made in Holland Amprex input tubes with the MHA200 @cantara256 from the 50's I believe. They were around $200 for a matched pair.

 

[EMINENT]

@adrianm Did you also eq the Elite to find similar degradation?
Could this loss of clarity just be a dip in certain frequencies that were perceived as a loss in clarity?

 

[BowWazoo]

 

[EMINENT]

Yeah, seen it. Completely opposite from @WaveTheory on the TC.

I like how he comes to no conclusion in his conclusion.

 

[BowWazoo]

I find the evaluation of the resolution quite interesting.

 

[the1andonly]

The whole thing was boring to me... he just subbed in the Diana for the 1266, then when talking about bass just mentions the 1266 as being better than the Elite for some reason, no mention of LCD-4 though.

 

[chargedcapacitor]

I find the evaluation of the resolution quite interesting.

I find it hard to trust a reviewer who disliked the Susvara, and who's favorite amp is the A90.

 

[BowWazoo]

I turned off at 6:10.
But then I gave the rest a chance...

 

[adrianm]

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?

Dave has a crossfeed setting that does DSP to create a presentation that is trying to mimic speakers, and it does it pretty well. I don't remember what kind of EQ it's doing , but I can't really listen without it anymore. It adds depth to the soundstage and makes the bass sound like it's an actual room, instead of coming from 2 separate earcups. This setting didn't seem to add as much depth on the LCD-5, as it did on the Elite.

@adrianm Did you also eq the Elite to find similar degradation?
Could this loss of clarity just be a dip in certain frequencies that were perceived as a loss in clarity?

I don't remember if i turned this off when EQ'ing the LCD-5 to be honest, but i tested with the Z1R now and the degradation is definitely there with it on. It becomes a wall of sound. I know I tested all possible combinations and I preferred the LCD-5 with the crossfeed than with Resolve's EQ.
I'd probably have to do more research to find out exactly what the Dave's DSP is doing and then compensate for that in Resolve's EQ in Roon to actually match it , but that's too much work at this point.

 

[cantara256]

On a resolving setup, it is (in my experience) quite possible to hear differences in the quality of EQ. There is more than one way (actually, infinite ways) to achieve the same tonal changes using DSP, but not all of them are created equal. Some of the factors to consider are (not in any particular order):

• Headroom: Real-time EQ needs a fixed gain adjustment (generally in the negative direction) to avoid clipping, depending on the nature of EQ, it is easy to lose 6 to 12 dB in headroom. This means one will have to increase the volume of the amp to compensate hence stressing the amp (if it does not have a whole lot left to work with).
• Dynamic range: This is related to the fixed gain adjustment to avoid clipping too. If one needs to apply a fixed digital gain, the worst-case scenario is you lose that much of dynamic range, which means there is increased signal to noise ratio and it could impact clarity among other things. Though there are ways to reduce this effect this, it depends on implementation by taking extra care to process the signals at higher bit-depth then possibly dither before sending it to the DAC.

PGGB addresses both of these; the quality of the EQ is better, and I really like being able to keep the volume the same as without EQ. Even with my modified version of Resolve's EQ through Roon (which has lower headroom requirements than his original) on my TT2, I sometimes get into the 90% volume range, because I listen loud but also have some tracks that play lower. If I did that now I'd go deaf!

To address some of the issues I cited, we offer Audeze presets for Roon as both linear and minimum phase filters, we bundle filters for all sample rates to avoid sample rate conversions, Roon processes them as 64bit doubles, and I believe dithers the output.

Any idea when those will be available, whether through Roon or as a download?

 

[KMann]

Any idea when those will be available, whether through Roon or as a download?

Are you asking for LCD-5 preset specifically? we have always had the linear presets in Roon. We just released the presets for CRBN and Euclid and waiting for Roon to release it. We are currently testing LCD-5 preset and hope to release that in a month or so.

Both CRBN and LCD-5 presets were created in collaboration with Bob Katz and Gary Cole. This way, our hope is to close the 'circle of confusion' when it comes to EQ. When you have mastering engineers put their stamp of approval on how their tracks translate with the EQ, then we remove some of the subjective aspects of creating the EQ. But this does not mean everyone would prefer such EQ, it just means that is how the creator intended a track to sound.