It all depends on the pair you get. Here's the graph for my pair and compared to my other cans they are bright.
Wow! Yeah, that does seem seriously different than the HeadRoom measurements. Is that the Audeze-provided FR? Or your own measurement? I know there's some variation in the drivers and the wood, but enough to change the sound signature that drastically really surprises me. Maybe the HeadRoom graph is wrong...
I just discovered how much improvements a cable upgrade can make to the sound, gosh really cleans up the overall sound; the already black background got even darker and cleaner with mids made richer and bass thickens up nicely with a slight increase in full-bodiedness in the overall sound. And they're not even fully run-in yet.
Yeah... cable burn-in. After sitting for a long time with the LCD-XCs today and two cables -- the stock LCD cable from Audeze, and the Moon Audio Silver Dragon cable -- on my setup today. I've got a PC running TIDAL connected to a DACmini CX, which is connected to a Tisbury Audio CA-1. I had a friend swap out the cables randomly with me facing away from the computer. I did not touch the cable, and after my friend initially positioned the headphones on my head, I adjusted them while carefully avoiding the connectors at the bottom. A truly blind test. Bless my friend's patience, but after 15 rounds of ABX testing, I've concluded that I cannot hear the difference between these two cables.
We already know that, from the objectivist point of view, measurements suggest that the difference cables make is "
Nope. Nada. Zilch." We also know that people
can't identity cables in blind ABX tests, and apparently any sort of experiment that avoids expectation bias is considered "objectivist" these days. The "subjectivist" point of view is that "well, so many people can hear it, how can you ignore that?" Even
Tyll seems to think this is true, despite
the same being the case for wine. Oh my gosh, and I see one more link to
that damn paper, I'll have a fit (the paper clearly states that their findings show that humans must be using a non-linear reconstruction procedure, i.e., not a Gabor filter, which is linear. Machines and computers can do non-linear reconstructions too, they just normally don't because it generally isn't needed. This paper absolutely does not say that humans are capable of hearing things that machinery cannot measure.)
I won't go as far as to say that cable manufacturers have duped us all into spending outrageous amounts of money on headphone cables that are pure silver and have the hair of a voodoo shaman wrapped around the solder joints. Or that anyone who claims to be able to hear the difference between cables is wrong. But I will say this: it's very instructive to do a blind ABX test in your own home on your own setup with your own cables. Enlightening, even. I'm a die-hard skeptic and even I was fully taken in by expectation bias. Knowing that I can't really hear the difference gives me the benefit of not having to spend ludicrous amounts of money on cables (now I can buy more headphones instead), and it also allows me to enjoy the headphones more in general, and not be anxious about the "next model up" cable making it sound better.
Every once and a while, it seems like a good idea to pause, take a breath, and realize that in the grand rush for better and better gear, we shouldn't ever spend a bunch of money on equipment and then feel anxious about it not performing to expectation. At least for me, I had started training myself to check the MSRP first and listen to the sound second. A bad habit, to be sure.
If you can hear the difference between cables, more power to you: perhaps your ears are more refined than mine (which I'm starting to think might be more of a curse than a blessing...). But please -- try a blind ABX test. And don't think to yourself "man, I better get this right, or else I'm a sucker for buying these angel hair cable ties!" -- just think of it as coming to better know yourself/your tastes absent the hype created by cable companies. Or angel hair farms. I assume that's where the pasta comes from as well.
All that being said, the stock LCD cable is an ergonomic disaster. It's way too long, way too floppy, and the flat, four-cables-glued together thing feels and looks terrible. The Moon Audio cables is great -- 5ft is a great length and the cable feels solid and lightweight. Is it worth nearly 300 dollars? Perhaps not.
I've been enjoying it tremendously, with the small exceptions of a bit of headband discomfort (which I hope to remedy with the LCD-4 headband when it becomes available for purchase) and the slightly harsh 4k region that everyone that seems to be talking about. 
). Being a hardcore cable-sceptic that I am, I A/Bed them FOUR times. Not because I was straining to hear the difference, but because I was not convinced the difference were real. Was it night and day "it's a miracle!" difference? No, but I've listened to my XCs for more than a month and I know their pros and cons and I did hear a difference (maybe it was psychotic yes, which was why I A/Bed them FOUR times, I'm glad my friend is a very patient man lol!). For added measure, I even asked my wife (trust me, she is the last person who wants me to spend "unnecessary money" on cables! but I have to add that she has better - and more sensible - ears than me as she grew up with an audiophile dad) and she said "It sounds cleaner, it removed the roughness". My headfi setup never sounded "rough" I was telling myself! well up until now, after I've heard something cleaner!
