Originally I’d intended to say a bit about the LCD-2F + H10 pairing; I may still get around to that. The LCD-2F has been my favorite all-around headphone for a while now. I bought the H10 after reading this thread on Head-Fi; I’d discovered this thread by association when researching the Cavalli CTH. (FlySweep is the salient link in this chain). The H10 looked like a suitable amp for my HE-500, I thought, and the price wasn’t prohibitive. In fact, it was encouraging. Since the H10’s specs indicated it should pair well with planars generally, and since planars are my preference, I pulled the trigger.
Rather than the LCD-2F, I’d like to focus on the HE-500 + H10 pairing. This is because I think the H10 drives the HE-500 better than any other amp I’ve heard. And drives it by a larger margin than whatever is the LCD-2F’s with the H10 relative to other amps. The previous champ had been ALO’s RxMk3B+, but ultimately I found the combo fatiguing for longer listening sessions, and best in short bursts. The RxMk3B+ was, I’d wager, a tad aggressive. Still, I miss that bass boost knob.
The relevant listening with the H10 was done with the +6dB pre-gain setting enabled. I agree with No_One411 that it’s an excellent setting for the HE-500. The HE-500 itself was outfitted with the newer Focus Pads (not the A version) which come standard on the HE-560 and HE-400i. I’ve always known that there was a reason I’ve held onto the HE-500. This is it. I find it difficult to give content to my claims without appealing to specific music. Lapalux’s “Cousin If” from the Many Faces Out of Focus EP – my current favorite single test track for headphones - has never sounded better. Lapalux’s Nostalchic is seriously important. It’s the album I thought it was.
For the rest of the post, I want to draw attention to certain aspects of the pairing. My hope is that this helps others to gain a better understanding of the H10, as well as the HE-500. Either one is a reason for owning the other.
The extension and the timbre quality of the bass is one of the more striking qualities of the HE-500 paired with the H10. The LCD-2F is often touted as a basshead’s headphone; while it certainly excels low down, I tend to think of the LCD-2F as a percussion headphone. I love it with e.g. Aphex Twin. When the sub hits on the HE-500, however, I’m liable to think the walls of my apartment are shaking. E.g. “Sphynx” on Etch’s Old School Methods EP. But there’s zero apparent distortion both in the mids and in the bass regions above the sub. On the contrary, I think the extremely low and tight bass contributes to the naturalness of the HE-500’s mids.
Now, of the headphones I’ve heard, the HE-500 has the widest apparent soundstage. It also has one of the apparent deepest. This can be very interesting when listening to music that has large tonal blindspots, like dubstep, since a pleasant sense of airiness comes through. I’ll return to this idea shortly. But it can sometimes sound like you’re present at the music – i.e., where it’s happening – spatially located, as it were, with respect to its source.
In other words, the HE-500 has a remarkably transparent sound signature. A headphone’s sound signature is transparent, I take it, when it approximates the sound of loudspeakers. People have claimed that the LCD-2F is extremely speaker-like, but I’ve always thought it sounds like nothing more(!) than a really great pair of headphones. Of course, I love the sound of great headphones. Who doesn’t? But sometimes great headphones (can) sound like great speakers. Which means they (can) sound like the real thing.
In the present case, the H10 makes my HE-500 sound like exactly that. This impression is created, I think, by the combination of the HE-500’s tremendous sub-bass imaging and the natural, centered and vaguely forward mids. Because of the width of the soundstage, an impressive sense of space is created in the stereo image. There’s greater separation than with, say, the LCD-2F. For these reasons, and for the one listed above, the HE-500 is an excellent headphone for dubstep – broadly understood. And particularly with Volor Flex’s Sabo. I feel as though I’m hearing the music in, say, a subway tunnel. That the HE-500 has a black background when driven by the H10 (even with the +6dB boost enabled) means that this sense of space is in no way obscured by the headphone.
Moving forward, I’d like to hear the HE-560 with the H10. Given what FlySweep had to say, and what I’ve myself heard with the HE-500, I expect I would like the pairing. And I still want to say more about the LCD-2F + H10 pairing. Oh, and I hope to have the Cavalli soon as well!
