[Mhog55]

At that price it had better be amazing for performing surgery. I would hate to think of such a wonderful headphone being used for metal. I love that genre, at least what I consider metal to be, but such typically poorly recorded and compressed music doesn't need the LCD4. There are many less expensive headphones that will bring out all that metal has to offer. Still, if I was loaded why the heck not have the LCD4 and listen to metal.

Can you name a few? I'm still searching myself. Using M-Audio Q40 and 58X atm

 

[Sonic Defender]

Can you name a few? I'm still searching myself. Using M-Audio Q40 and 58X atm

I would actually search some existing threads on the topic as I no longer really listen to metal, but I did for many years. I would suggest that there is a great deal of subjective preference and it is really difficult to make any meaningful suggestion without knowing several pieces of information such as the types of recordings that your most listened to bands typically produce and what aspects of the music is really important to you.

I think it is safe to say that metal will be (typically) very loud, highly compressed and edgy sounding almost as a rule. You get screaming aggressive, multiple dubbed guitar lines, smashing constant cymbal work adding really high energy (and plenty of noise) thick heavy bass guitar and really prominent pounding percussion. I grew up on metal in the 80s and 90s but I still on occasion hear some modern metal, but not a genre that I follow. Saying all of that, for myself I would think a headphone that was slightly warm with a fairly flat midrange response and maybe some slight dipping in the treble would make metal easier to listen to. That said, the volume of playback matters and as mentioned earlier most importantly is what you want from the music.

I personally prefer a slightly warm signature with that slight rolled back treble as I like rather loud playback volumes so treble can be really grating at higher volumes if it is pronounced. I am also at a loss for suggestions as I just find that nothing can sound good with hard rock or metal at high volume, there is just (in my experience) far too often this huge wall of sound that is really noisy and I don't mean in terms of the music itself, just the sea of pounding frequencies all trying to dominate. I do realize there is variation, but given that frequently the music will venture into these loud areas it makes it an important consideration for me. As a result I would never use headphones for this type of music, definitely I wouldn't waste any big money at all on headphones as I really don't think there is anything sonically for better designs to work with. I use speakers for heavy music as they aren't strapped to my head and allow a little room for the frequencies to disentangle.

Personally I really like heavy metal and rock, but I find it all sounds very unpleasant through headphones unless you keep the volume down, but I don't. Long winded way of not answering, but I wanted to offer you a little more detail about where I come from on this issue. I also know that there are likely to be some very good recordings, but I am equally confident that such well done material will be the minority in this genre, based on personal experience, but your experiences may be very different from mine.