[listenerwww]

I’m impressed they are even agreeing to an upgrade. Audeze (like any hardware manufacturer) have the right to update their products specs whenever they want. Agreeing to take your older kit and upgrade it is pretty unusual in my humble opinion.

Agreed. Audeze sets themselves apart from their competition not only through this, but in being transparent about their revisions in the first place! Other companies have no problem doing silent revisions all the time, but Audeze, in my experience, is one of the best brands when it comes to their transparency in information.

 

[listenerwww]

@Resolve's measurements looking a lot more like Crin's measurements of LCD-4 (green) between 1.5k and 12k

 

[parasubvert]

So, it’s funny, I just received new LCD-XC’s today (maybe a couple of hours ago).

I immediately applied EQ presets in Roon before listening.... and couldn’t believe how bad they sounded. Anemic bass, too much treble, no upper mids. I kept trying different presets, different amp/DAC, etc, and I was confused.

See this thread, disable the EQ, and... wow, so much better. I’m sure there will be new tweaks after measurements, but these are surprising out of the box.

 

[metal571]

@Resolve's measurements looking a lot more like Crin's measurements of LCD-4 (green) between 1.5k and 12k

Yes, my LCD-2F measures similar to these curves-ish as well, so all the full size LCD models have essentially been tuned improperly for some time now, at least back to 2018. Compare this with Tyll's (yes I know it's a different rig) old graphs.

 

[mikecheck95]

Yes, my LCD-2F measures similar to these curves-ish as well, so all the full size LCD models have essentially been tuned improperly for some time now, at least back to 2018. Compare this with Tyll's (yes I know it's a different rig) old graphs.

I guess the question is whether we will see similar revisions made to the 2f,3 etc.

 

[tutetibiimperes]

yeah the large plain font on the cups is almost cheap/tacky. Allowing the carbon fiber pattern to carry the aesthetic or some kind of pattern/logo would be nicer.
previous lcd2closed was a better look imo

That was a great look. I also really loved the alligator skin LCD-XC version, especially the blue one, would be nice if they brought that back. As long as I’m dreaming an LCD-4 with LCD-X aesthetics (all metal and black grills instead of wood and chrome) would be very appealing.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Why.

WHY.

Why do you have to do this? Now I have to save up!! UGH!

 

[FYFL]

@AudezeGrover when LCD4 closed is coming out?

 

[listenerwww]

Okay. Luckily I was able to have a co-worker drop them off after closing (i'm not allowed back until Saturday due to being exposed to COVID) so shouts out to my homegirl Eagle for hooking it up.

I have the pads in hand and, subjectively, they feel somewhat cheap, to be honest. The leather feels of a somewhat lower quality, noticeably thin, and a little sticky. I do not remember my pads feeling or looking like this when the headphones first arrived. However, this could definitely be just me misremembering the texture of the pads themselves, yet I'm fairly certain it's a new type of leather. They are, almost unnervingly, shiny. Not saying this is a bad thing, how they age remains to be seen, and how they sound remains to be heard, after all.

Below are pictures comparing the outer texture of the pads, the ones on the headphone are the original pads that came on the headphone in October 2020, the shiny ones in hand are the new ones. Obviously the older pad will be less shiny due to wear, but I'm pretty positive they were never *this* shiny.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly: these pads are definitely no longer memory foam. Rebound after pressing into it is immediate. Whatever consequences this has for comfort are yet to be seen, but as of right now I'm hesitant to make the swap because I *love* the comfort of my LCD-X as it currently is.

I'd like to know if @Resolve has had a similar experience with his 2021 pair.

For now, I'm going to take this opportunity to reacquaint myself with the tuning of these with the stock pads, in the event I decide to make the swap tomorrow and want to make comparisons. As of tonight though, I'm not exactly confident in making the change any time soon... Because, personally, comfort is one of my favorite things about the headphone and a lot harder to fix than the tuning is.

Hopefully @AudezeGrover or Andrew can chime in with some insight into the comfort changes.

EDIT: A few reddit users have chimed in saying they received the same pads on their units which came stock with the new revision. They also said comfort was subjectively very good. This bodes well and alleviates some of the concerns I had about swapping. However, still unsure if I'm going to make the swap. Will update tomorrow.

 

[Deceneu808]

@AudezeGrover Can I secure a secondary set of the new pads for the LCD-X ? Are they the same as ordering from your website ? Leather ones in my case

 

[Seannlifts]

I'm about to pull the trigger. But I'm dying to know if its just better in the FR, or are there technical improvements too?

Would love to hear your insights @Resolve if it's worth it, or should I just stick to an EQed older X. Thanks!

 

[Infoseeker]

I'm about to pull the trigger. But I'm dying to know if its just better in the FR, or are there technical improvements too?

Would love to hear your insights @Resolve if it's worth it, or should I just stick to an EQed older X. Thanks!

If you are in my situation with a 1st gen lcd xc. There has now been two earpads revisions. So new earpads are not compatible and you will need new earpads eventually due to the angled earpads collapsing even a little over time shifting things.

But you could just further eq to compensate, but it may cause too big a shift to eq.

 

[iviustang50h]

@GriffinSilver Is it difficult to swap the pads or something? If so, I understand your hesitation; but if it’s easy, why not just go for it and compare?

 

[listenerwww]

@GriffinSilver Is it difficult to swap the pads or something? If so, I understand your hesitation; but if it’s easy, why not just go for it and compare?

Not especially hard to swap, but as soon as I swap I can literally never go back, because (from what I gather) these are going to be the new stock Audeze pad...

Which means that the EQ profiles i've agonized over for months are rendered not only irrelevant, but much harder to re-do because I won't have A) relevant FR graphs from Audeze themselves (which I didn't use for amplitude quantity, but for which frequencies to target) or B) measurements from Crin, Resolve or Oratory which were super helpful in determining what features are quirks of my pair and which features are, generally, similar across the LCD-X line as a whole.

This will be a totally unique (regarding being previously unmeasured) headphone, having 2020 drivers with 2021 pads, so I'll be flying completely blind when doing my EQing.

For a pair that's going to be used heavily EQ'd very often (& not just normal EQ btw, stereo EQ for fixing channel balance issues too), I'm not sure the benefits to stock FR outweigh the detriments of having to do all of that again but much harder this time.

I'd be interested to know from @AudezeGrover if pads can be reattached after removal, because if so, that makes this a lot less daunting.
As far as I know though, the pads use an adhesive, and as such I'd be pretty uncomfortable trying to reattach after removal.

An edit, just for clarification: Even with all of that said, I'm still mulling it over. @metal571 has told me that many people think the initial revision of the pads to use memory foam (because they were originally normal foam, apparently) is what ruined the stock FR around 2-4.5kHz on these in the first place, which was interesting... and others on reddit are telling me the comfort on 2021 versions is still really good. So I'm not exactly saying it's not possible (if anything, I'm leaning more towards doing the change, just so the community has at least a modicum of information regarding what 2021 pads will sound like on older units) but I'm hesitant. I just woke up so I'm gonna start listening to the stock FR with fresh ears, write down impressions of the sound of songs I know *very* well, and go from there.

 

[listenerwww]

If you are in my situation with a 1st gen lcd xc. There has now been two earpads revisions. So new earpads are not compatible and you will need new earpads eventually due to the angled earpads collapsing even a little over time shifting things.

But you could just further eq to compensate, but it may cause too big a shift to eq.

It's possible the new pads are more similar to the first iteration of the LCD-XC pads considering they no longer use memory foam. Total conjecture on my point, but yeah.