SubL0ck
New Head-Fier
Also liking the pads and i think i've got used to the weight as well.
Audeze LCD-X
- Thread starter Icenine2
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- audeze-lcd-x
Do all LCD X that come
in economy travel case have 2021 revisions? Including b stock ones. I was thinking of buying open box/b-stock LCD X and the seller told me they bought a few b-stock units directly from audeze and they're from 2020, but it comes in the 2021 economy travel case, so I was confused. He can't give the serial number either as that particular unit might not be the one that's shipped.
Also, anyone bought b-stock LCD X in the last few months?
in economy travel case have 2021 revisions? Including b stock ones. I was thinking of buying open box/b-stock LCD X and the seller told me they bought a few b-stock units directly from audeze and they're from 2020, but it comes in the 2021 economy travel case, so I was confused. He can't give the serial number either as that particular unit might not be the one that's shipped.
Also, anyone bought b-stock LCD X in the last few months?
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BowWazoo
Member of the Trade: Cable Builder
Can someone tell me how to distinguish the 2020 from the 2021 version?
phthora
Headphoneus Supremus
The serial number gives you the most direct method. Compare it to the serials below. If your serial number is higher than those listed, it's the latest revision.
You can also email Audeze with your serial number if you have a few days to wait. Or, if you have them in hand, simply count the Fazor bars: 6 for the new revision, 8 for the older version.
Yes....they should but the only guarantee is checking the serial number. Also worth noting is some early production run units of the 2021 revisions didn’t ship in the economy case. I bought my LCD-X in early February (prior to the news of the 2021 revisions being made public) from Adorama and they came sealed from Audeze in the old plain Jane cardboard box.
I later learned based on the serial number they were in fact the 2021 version (which began production in November 2020.
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Aside from the serial numbers they are physically different. If you feel inside the ear cup you can feel the fazors and count them. The ‘21 LCD-X has 6 fazors......the earlier versions had 8
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BowWazoo
Member of the Trade: Cable Builder
I really like the current version.
Of course, adjusted according to Harman.
Of course, adjusted according to Harman.
Andii
100+ Head-Fier
I'm really fascinated by the harman target curve. I really like the default sound of the 2021 LCD-X and to my own ears and preference right now I do believe that it sounds neutral. No matter what I have tried so far I haven't been able to improve on Bitperfect playback that bypasses the system mixer via drivers or exclusive modes and no DSP.
I tried the preset made by Andrew Park using the peace extension on equalizer APO and it sounded extremely overcooked and just REALLY BAD. I absolutely hated the sound. I'm an audio engineer and one thing that I know is that an equalizer is not an equalizer. There are phase and ringing issues that come with a lot of equalizers. On a headphone like the LCD-X, my experience with them from engineering audio on them is that they reveal the shortcomings in a bad equalizer easily. One thing about using equalizer APO EQ is that right off from the start you have to give up bit perfect playback, then you have an unknown EQ that I suspect isn't the best flowing through the windows mixer and resampling, downsampling truncating and who knows what else.
I'm going to try the same eq curve using Fabfilter Pro Q 3. It's a mastering grade EQ VST plugin via an ASIO driver. That's probably just about the ideal way to run eq on your playback system. I saw someone in the headphones.com community doing exactly this in the LCD-X thread over there via Audirvana IIRC.
I think I'm going to give that a try. I really want to give the Harman target a listen under ideal conditions so that I can truly hear what it sounds like on the LCD-X.
I tried the preset made by Andrew Park using the peace extension on equalizer APO and it sounded extremely overcooked and just REALLY BAD. I absolutely hated the sound. I'm an audio engineer and one thing that I know is that an equalizer is not an equalizer. There are phase and ringing issues that come with a lot of equalizers. On a headphone like the LCD-X, my experience with them from engineering audio on them is that they reveal the shortcomings in a bad equalizer easily. One thing about using equalizer APO EQ is that right off from the start you have to give up bit perfect playback, then you have an unknown EQ that I suspect isn't the best flowing through the windows mixer and resampling, downsampling truncating and who knows what else.
I'm going to try the same eq curve using Fabfilter Pro Q 3. It's a mastering grade EQ VST plugin via an ASIO driver. That's probably just about the ideal way to run eq on your playback system. I saw someone in the headphones.com community doing exactly this in the LCD-X thread over there via Audirvana IIRC.
I think I'm going to give that a try. I really want to give the Harman target a listen under ideal conditions so that I can truly hear what it sounds like on the LCD-X.
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Golyatx
100+ Head-Fier
You can try my own EQ.
Low shelf +6db 77hz 1 Q (3-6 gain there up to taste)
Low shelf +2,5db 150hz 0,8 Q (gain there up to taste, +1,5db is good too)
Peak +2db 2,5khz 2,5 Q
Peak +4db 3,7khz 4,5 Q
Peak -1db 5,8khz 5 Q
High shelf +2,5db 8,1khz 0,7 Q
To me this way the X sound the most enjoyable.
BowWazoo
Member of the Trade: Cable Builder
Has anyone here compared X with the MX4?
Can one speak of an upgrade?
Can one speak of an upgrade?
Very much agree with this. Blindly adjusting to Harman curve is a very bad idea (and frankly quite silly)!! There is a reason our Reveal presets does not do that either. Harman curve was developed based on listener preference using a specific rig, but it does not fully account for variability of headphone measurements on a specific rig, especially in the upper mids and treble. On LCD-X, I may boost a few dB centered at 4kHz and perhaps a bass shelf (depending on taste) but that is about it.
Edit: Fitting to Harman target on most of our LCD line of headphones, to my ears has resulted in a very bright signature, it may sound impressive on first listen or during A/B and some may prefer the forward sounding treble, but I do not consider it either natural or neutral.
Edit2: There are other headphones (HD800 comes to mind) where fitting to Harman target would work very well because the measurements on 45CA translate quite well to what we hear, but it has not been the case for most of our models.
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For the technically inclined, you can refer: SE. E.. Olive, T. Welti, and E. McMullin, "A Virtual Headphone Listening Test Methodology," Paper 3-5, (2013 August.)
Harman conducted studies to see how good virtual headphone was to the real headphone as this formed the basis for future studies in developing the Harman target.
While developing the preferred headphone response/target, in order to avoid listener bias due to visual or ergonomic factors, instead of using different headphones, a single headphone (such as HD518 in this paper) was used to create a virtual headphone. i.e., HD518 was first EQd to flat, then it was made to match the measurements of other headphones and LCD2 was the preferred headphone in many of these early studies.
Two important takeaway were:
Historically, LCD series are not very 'photogenic' when it comes to measurement and what you see on the graph is not what you get
Harman conducted studies to see how good virtual headphone was to the real headphone as this formed the basis for future studies in developing the Harman target.
While developing the preferred headphone response/target, in order to avoid listener bias due to visual or ergonomic factors, instead of using different headphones, a single headphone (such as HD518 in this paper) was used to create a virtual headphone. i.e., HD518 was first EQd to flat, then it was made to match the measurements of other headphones and LCD2 was the preferred headphone in many of these early studies.
Two important takeaway were:
- LCD2 (HP1) was the most preferred (ranked 1) headphone when no virtual headphone was used (i.e., original headphone was used) but it fell to the second rank when virtual headphone was used.
- LCD2 (HP1) had the least (in fact abysmal) correlation between the actual headphone and the virtual headphone (0.05, 1.0 being the best). I.e., LCD2 was virtualized the worst. Quoting directly from the paper:
Historically, LCD series are not very 'photogenic' when it comes to measurement and what you see on the graph is not what you get
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NickedWicked
100+ Head-Fier
Fresh 2021 LCD-X owner in the works here,. Tried one a few years ago and it was a mishmash of being slightly too heavy, headband slightly uncomfortable and the sound being a little unbalanced and cloudy sounding without the DSP program. But now that that's all fixed I am glad to give it a shot again! 
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