[dleblanc343]

How do you think the susvara compares to the lcd-5 for EDM?

This is a music genre that I find LCD5 does better with. Utopia as well.

Old HiFiMAN velour pads on Susvara can change this discussion however.

 

[TheMiddleSky]

I will be publishing a 3-way review of LCD-R, LCD5 & CRBN in the coming days, but after catching up on this LCD5 discussion, and reading some drama, I feel like a few topics should be properly assessed or considered at least.

The tuning

People are going on about how these need EQ, and I thoroughly disagree. Truth be told, these are reference headphones, and are tuned this way. Now, I appreciate that, many others do as well, but let’s be honest, a reference tuning is not going to be as thrilling or generally “natural” sounding like most headphones tailored towards Harman.

Do I like Harman? The latest Harman target - No, not that much. But my preferred tuning is somewhere between what LCD5 graphs and Harman 2013 target. @Resolve is my favorite reviewer, and I agree whole-heartedly with nearly everything he writes, because he is self-aware and shows little-to-no bias - a true blessing to a community plagued with all sorts of goofs of reviewers. But even if I agree with most everything, personal preferences and subjective opinions will always lead to the end-user valuing different things with different weight to it.

When I got my LCD5, he suggested I try the EQ’s (as shown in this thread), which I appreciated, but disagreed on finding them to improve the LCD5. I prefer the stock tuning; I actually find it exceptional and barely needing any EQ, and found the EQ to take away from the effortlessness ever slightly. Who’s wrong, me, or Andrew? Nobody. Nobody is more wrong or right actually, we value different things, and it’s much more minute and nuanced of a difference, but at this level, audiophiles employ hyperbole a lot - we kind of need to to differentiate generally exceptional products that are more difficult to criticize. The upper midrange LCD5 shoutiness, to me, is really not an issue. I find it energetic, not shouty, but many genuinely find it shouty. I personally find the upper treble registers more bothersome with this headphone, at least, the lack of airiness. I find it to make the headphones sound less spacious, but then again, this probably helps with it being more in your face and engaging. I don’t listen to as much metal as Andrew does, can it be as simple as that? Where the musical pairing is more brutal in the upper mids ? Yes and no maybe.

Everything is a balancing act.

Things need to be considered. Everyone who owns an LCD5 does not hear it the same due to multiple reasons. Here are some:

• Your music choices -

This is obvious, and LCD5 is going to sound good with everything in my opinion, but may play better with female vocals, or acoustic music, or film scores, or EDM, etc etc. You decide, but assessment of this product will be affected by the user’s musical preferences no matter what.

• Your listening level -

Low level listeners and high volume listeners do not hear the same output. With some headphones, it is drastic. No many in this hobby seem to think of this, but it’s a crucial component in assessing a product. With increase in volume, there is the smiley curve effect; bass & treble will always perceptually increase exponentially relative to the midrange as you increase volume. It adds “dynamics” or at least a sense of.

I will always remember my first time hearing the MrSpeakers Ether - a friend of mine claimed it sounded super dynamic, and upon listening to it, I found it to be quite literally one of the least dynamic things I’ve ever heard. Then I saw he was listening to them at least 20dB louder than I was. It was a completely different sounding headphone… Personally I found this scary lol.

• Your chain & signal path -

Turntable vs CD vs Streaming vs Lossless Files vs Youtube & or Soundclound playlists?

DAC - Delta-Sigma vs FPGA, vs R2R?

Amp - Tube or Solid State? Dedicated headphone amp or speaker taps? Power amp or integrated amp? Class A, AB, C or D circuit.

Tube topology - Single Ended, Push Pull, Output Transformerless?

Cables - Copper vs SPC vs Silver? Capacitance, number of strands, oxygen and noise shielding, braiding, etc. Am I being ridiculous, totally! But hey, it’s a factor.

• Listening habits & environment -

Do you listen late at night when you’re tired and want to wind down, or mid day while working and trying to be productive. Energize yourself through music, or let yourself go into a dark void and lose yourself in it?

Are you secluded and in a quiet environment, or are you in proximity of others?

Do you close your eyes when listening? (this is huge)

I’m crazy right? These are all such small things, surely it can’t yield that much of a difference in the listening experience? Well, compound all of the above together, and I’m sure we’re looking at, say, 5 to 10% variance from a mean. That is enough to swing the perception of a well tuned product from either: amazingly well tuned but warm, to amazingly well tuned but a bit too forward, or simply “wow these are so realistic I’m digging deep to try to find my gripes with it!”.

The Topic of EQ

Here is why EQ has, in my opinion, grown so much in its application in the hobby over the years.

1. Audio gear, especially headphones and iem’s have surged in technical performance in the last decade especially, offering fantastic distortion measures (lack of), which is immediately more enticing for EQ application.
2. There is no perfectly neutral headphone. No matter what anyone says, too many constraints at play. Driver in a chamber, positioning on head/ in-ear, energy dissipation, damping, physical anatomy of end-user’s head or ear & many more. You can bet your ass EQ is an awesome tool to overcome, or at least alter some of these challenges.
3. Correction of properties of sound such as sense of dynamism (notably physical tactility), timbre, imaging and staging can all be altered through EQ, for better or for worse. However, EQ will always yield compression, no exception - luckily the human ear may be deaf to it with many of the TOTL offerings, again due to the fabulous accomplishments in reduced distortion which go beyond the limitations of our eardrum.

I don’t know why I rambled so much, but there’s no going back now…

All this to say, LCD5 and EQ seems to be a hot topic as of late, and I think it’s important to bridge the gap between “non EQ purists” and “EQ is life” clans of thought.

I myself am not the biggest fan of the essence of EQ’ing, yet grew to employ it as a tool over time. Ironically, I use EQ mostly on some of my favorite headphones (Susvara, HD800, LCD5 & KSE1500) but have many more good audio gears that I do not feel compelled to EQ. I am happy to have options which each have their strengths & weakness, for different use cases.

A little goes a long way with EQ. @Resolve 's provided EQ’s are examples of that. Reduction of shout, lower treble boost and especially the bass shelf helps it bring it in-line with Harman target, which is a proven success since it is standardization of many listener’s perception of natural. Most will agree with this sound.

Personally, I find it a bit too bassy, so borrowing the inputs of provided EQ, I reduced the shelf a bit, and also the small treble peaking filter by a decibel. Also reduced the upper mid dip by half a decibel. Ultimately, I actually preferred the stock sound a bit as it sounded faster and a bit more transparent, however, a bit dull and lifeless comparatively. I’ve realized that @Torq and I probably have a similar ear over the few months of being on here, and maybe a bit more old school than most.

I’ve settled on simply using LCD5 with a bass shelf of 2dB from 180Hz down & a treble shelf from 7kHz up of 1.4dB (approximations by memory here, don’t have access to my data) when I want a bit more emotion, otherwise, I actually just leave the LCD5 as is on my slam stack.

For all of you “muh +10dB Bass shelf” folks. I reckon you look into getting a completely different headphone straight up, as this headphone, albeit being fantastic with EQ, was not really intended as guilty pleasure fun, but more of a “correct” piece of audio equipment. HE6, TH900, LCD4 & 1266TC are all fabulous options for those closet bassheads.

Nice assessment, there are plenty factors why we all hear differently. Especially about the listening volume and habit you mentioned above. Happened a lot.

 

[Kevintj604]

I'm going to be testing the LCD5 this week as my local headphone shop has a demo unit in store. I'll be doing a head to head with my Rosson RAD-0 as well as a Final D800 Pro and Meze Elite that he also has in the store.

If I like the LCD5 I'll have to sell the Rosson's as well as another set of mine to afford them.

Anyone here tested the RAD-0 vs the LCD5?

In my current collection the RAD-0 is my favorite headphone.

 

[Trance_Gott]

My LCD-5 comes this week. And I have the RAD-0 also here will write something later.

 

[curvz]

Give the Audeze LCD5 a chance to burn in. Whether that’s just brain acclimatisation who knows. But I have found they improved subjectively over the first 10-20 hours. I like them a whole lot more now than initially.

The LCD5 are more mid forward than Susvara. The latter are technically more proficient though. But it’s close.

I'm finding this too. When I just had them, I found them to be very much like my the Utopia, even if less bright. Just 4 days later and and I'm wondering how I could ever think such things!

Liking them better every day.

 

[Trance_Gott]

I'm finding this too. When I just had them, I found them to be very much like my the Utopia, even if less bright. Just 4 days later and and I'm wondering how I could ever think such things!

Liking them better every day.

Welcome to bizarre world of headphone hobby.

 

[nwavesailor]

Dealers have stock if you really want a new 5 before the new year.

 

[ajreynol]

1266 TC's will be here on Friday for a proper A-B comparison. We'll see which one is kept and which one is returned very, very soon.

 

[TheMiddleSky]

Audeze LCD-5 Impression

I think i have passed the (brain) burn in time, and will put some words here. Had compared LCD-5 with Abyss Phi some pages ago, now I just want to give more general impression. I familiar with most of TOTL in the market right now (either owned by friends, or demo on the store), and my personal headphone right now is Meze Elite (had Diana Phi and ZMF Verite). Test direct from Chord TT2.

About LCD-5:
- The whole experience in few words: High energy, aggressive, detail, intense, Audeze house sound still remain.

- Low frequency is sublime. "Sharp" and solid punch, speed is very agile, tight, and "discipline". Will never sound boomy, overlapping or produce too long decay regardless how complex the song is. A bit remind me of Bass on Diana Phi. Definitely quicker than Meze Elite's bass, even though not as full when we talk about bass quantity.

- Midrange, star of the show. Being Balance-Midcentric presentation, Vocal get the most attention here. Vocal sems "Big", upfront, very clear pronunciation. Not mellow, or try to become sweet. Tone is a bit at warm side, and there is some "dry" sensation that keep Vocal stay in accurate presentation (as opposed the sweet tone on Meze Elite that try to please everyone, even though not pursuing dead neutral/accuracy).

Full body midrange, from male voice in Blues, till female voice in audiophile songs, all is good here. Guitar (acoustic and electric) and snare drum sounds really excellent. So much energy to release. Forward vocal, I think the most forward in this price range. This forwardness create intense feeling, and great for high energy music.

- Treble. This is a section that I like the least from LCD-5. Netral-dark presentation, not too dark, but definitely darker than most of headphones that I like (Meze Elite, ZMF Verite Open, and Abyss Diana Phi). Treble detail actually really good, above Elite and Diana. However, sparkle is a bit subdued. Gasp of air feeling. It feels like midrange "attack" the treble area, as high frequency is more laidback compare to midrange. There is slight dull feeling here, not because lack of bite (far from it), but because lack of air. I do think pure silver cable in good quality will help to create more balance Treble-Midrange here.

- Soundstage
In general, good balance presentation between width, depth, and height when tested with drum test or instrument songs. With vocal songs, due to forwardness midrange, imaging presentation become narrow, everything feels close to the singer. Singer become "bigger" and everything else narrow down to the singer position. Still, wider presentation than Diana Phi, but easily feel lack of depth/height holographic compare to Meze Elite which is a more laidback sounding.

Imaging quality, on the other hand, very well structured, laser sharp positioning.

LCD-5 prove that Audeze does know how to create master technical headphone, and still try to infuse their house sound by being neutral to dark treble, smooth full body vocal, and impactful agile bass. What surprise me is they tune the Midrange this prominent, unlike their other LCD series.

 

[Securitiesfraud]

Will the dx240 have enough power to drive the lcd-5?

 

[Tanalasta]

On

Will the dx240 have enough power to drive the lcd-5?

On technical specification yes

 

[implicitzen]

Audeze LCD-5 Impression

I think i have passed the (brain) burn in time, and will put some words here. Had compared LCD-5 with Abyss Phi some pages ago, now I just want to give more general impression. I familiar with most of TOTL in the market right now (either owned by friends, or demo on the store), and my personal headphone right now is Meze Elite (had Diana Phi and ZMF Verite). Test direct from Chord TT2.

About LCD-5:
- The whole experience in few words: High energy, aggressive, detail, intense, Audeze house sound still remain.

- Low frequency is sublime. "Sharp" and solid punch, speed is very agile, tight, and "discipline". Will never sound boomy, overlapping or produce too long decay regardless how complex the song is. A bit remind me of Bass on Diana Phi. Definitely quicker than Meze Elite's bass, even though not as full when we talk about bass quantity.

- Midrange, star of the show. Being Balance-Midcentric presentation, Vocal get the most attention here. Vocal sems "Big", upfront, very clear pronunciation. Not mellow, or try to become sweet. Tone is a bit at warm side, and there is some "dry" sensation that keep Vocal stay in accurate presentation (as opposed the sweet tone on Meze Elite that try to please everyone, even though not pursuing dead neutral/accuracy).

Full body midrange, from male voice in Blues, till female voice in audiophile songs, all is good here. Guitar (acoustic and electric) and snare drum sounds really excellent. So much energy to release. Forward vocal, I think the most forward in this price range. This forwardness create intense feeling, and great for high energy music.

- Treble. This is a section that I like the least from LCD-5. Netral-dark presentation, not too dark, but definitely darker than most of headphones that I like (Meze Elite, ZMF Verite Open, and Abyss Diana Phi). Treble detail actually really good, above Elite and Diana. However, sparkle is a bit subdued. Gasp of air feeling. It feels like midrange "attack" the treble area, as high frequency is more laidback compare to midrange. There is slight dull feeling here, not because lack of bite (far from it), but because lack of air. I do think pure silver cable in good quality will help to create more balance Treble-Midrange here.

- Soundstage
In general, good balance presentation between width, depth, and height when tested with drum test or instrument songs. With vocal songs, due to forwardness midrange, imaging presentation become narrow, everything feels close to the singer. Singer become "bigger" and everything else narrow down to the singer position. Still, wider presentation than Diana Phi, but easily feel lack of depth/height holographic compare to Meze Elite which is a more laidback sounding.

Imaging quality, on the other hand, very well structured, laser sharp positioning.

LCD-5 prove that Audeze does know how to create master technical headphone, and still try to infuse their house sound by being neutral to dark treble, smooth full body vocal, and impactful agile bass. What surprise me is they tune the Midrange this prominent, unlike their other LCD series.

I have the meze elites myself, and I haven't had the opportunity to demo susvaras or the LCD-5. Can't help wondering if I'm missing out when I read stuff like this.

 

[jscmd2000]

Definitely missing out... you should get both

 

[implicitzen]

Definitely missing out... you should get both

lol, if only i could afford both. I'm shelling out for my wedding next year. so that is definitely not possible at the moment.

 

[jlbrach]

Skip the wedding