mikecheck95
100+ Head-Fier
Ya, on the LCD-X thread myself and others shared their FR graphs from Audeze.Has anyone else here contacted Audeze to get the frequency graph for their specific LCD-X ? There is definitely still some driver variance on this new 2021 version. A friend of mine owns a 2021 as well, and there is an audible difference. His starts to roll off in the bass at about 40Hz. Mine starts rolling off at about 30Hz. Bass on my headphone is certainly deeper and more present. At 2kHz, my headphone is a bit more dipped than his. In the upper treble, there is quite a difference present. His is spiked from 11-12.5kHz. My headphone has a much wider peak, which is happening at 10-13kHz.
*from this point on post contains speculation that has not been confirmed by Audeze*
There IS unit variance and there is also a trend from looking at those graphs. It is my guess that in order to get linear bass response there must be a “give” in the upper-mids around 4kHz. Units made earlier seem to have more present treble/mids with a dip in the sub-bass and more recent units have more sub-bass with less treble presence and air. Newer units also appear to be even more linear than the earlier units. ALL are a massive improvement over the pre-revision LCD-X though.
Again, just a guess but it seems Audeze may have initially decided to go all for measurements and tried to get the upper-mids to look like Harman (or their house curve) but, they saw the customer feedback about the lack of sub-bass presence (that many people buy Audezes for) and decided they would maybe dial it back a few notches.
My take: all LCD-Xs could use some EQ. Just look at some EQ profiles, discover what you like and tweak it to your preference. I find I sometimes will go for “un-EQed” as well if I’m looking for a more relaxed listening session.