[artisandro]

Maybe I'm ignorant, but from all your research and what you've written in this post there are a few things of note imo:
1. You have a slight preference for the Elite based on comfort and looks.
2. There is no objective reason to believe that the Elite is less resolving than the LCD-5
3. You have personal impressions from reviewers which claim that the LCD-5 is more resolving (resolve) and that both are equal in that regard (lachlan)

Based on this I don't see why you shouldn't pick the Elite and be happy.
Both will enable you to produce in high quality

Thank you. This is helpful feedback.

I'm here because I know I'm amongst people who have more experience when it comes to headphone sound, that is not my specialisation, and I'm confused atm. So, I value this kind of feedback.

I may end up making the decision by making a long trek to a dealer and doing a final listen using tracks I've listened to over 100 times. And input like this will help. So, I do appreciate it

 

[BassicScience]

I imagine @Resolve would be far more likely to respond if tagged.

FWIW, I did an informal A/B with the Elite and LCD-5 about six months ago, and I have to agree with the "reviewers". Switching to the LCD-5 resulted in an obvious increase in clarity, spaciousness, and speed. In fact, the first thought that came to my mind was "better technically".

Mind you, I don't dislike the Elite. It's just that in a world where a used Susvara cost me $3300, and I don’t need portability, I simply don't have a reason to buy it. YMMV.

 

[betula]

I get the subjective element. I totally get it. But making a statement like, and I quote from Resolve's headphone tier list, "It just doesn’t have the technical chops to compete for sound quality.", to me, is a damning statement.

Other reviewers and owners respectfully disagree with him (including me). It is just that the opinion of 'reviewers' with a bigger following will be louder. I stopped following headphones.com reviewers as some of them admittedly can't even hear the difference between the Elite earpads.

 

[artisandro]

I imagine @Resolve would be far more likely to respond if tagged.

FWIW, I did an informal A/B with the Elite and LCD-5 about six months ago, and I have to agree with the "reviewers". Switching to the LCD-5 resulted in an obvious increase in clarity, spaciousness, and speed. In fact, the first thought that came to my mind was "better technically".

Mind you, I don't dislike the Elite. It's just that in a world where a used Susvara cost me $3300, and I don’t need portability, I simply don't have a reason to buy it. YMMV.

I'm sorry. I'm new to the audiophile community and didn't even know I could tag him here. He's probably too busy to respond anyway.

I asked because I value community feedback (the collective) as much, if not more, than YT reviewers, because these are people who really care about the subject, and have undoubtedly spent their valuable money on a set of cans after traversing the same information I had to. Reviewers can lose touch with reality given the volumes they go through, as well as the potential for bias when you're probably approached form various marketing teams who, naturally, leverage the opportunity to reach people by offering affiliation benefits. Affiliations don't need to be direct, btw. Exclusive invitations to events, access to pre-production equipment, preferential treatment, all serve to bias a reviewer. Just because they aren't forced to give a positive review, doesn't mean they aren't biased because they know what the "wrong" kind of review would do to their relationship with certain companies... That's just the reality. Trade & commerce above all else. I'm a software engineer/architect by trade, and am consulting for a "certain" big corp (fat sigh, I know... ). I had to undergo strict compliance training, which involves exams. In this training, "bribery" is very specifically described through various case studies. Simply accepting a dinner invite from a party, constitutes as "bribery". No money needs to change hands. It's very clearly explained that it serves to bias an individual, and even slight bias, affects outcomes... That's why I turn to forums, reddit, etc to hear from the community, and tug at common threads, to slowly creep towards a conclusion. According to the compliance training, and my own reasoning, accepting a loan to review a headphone would constitute as creating a marginal subconscious bias. so... It's hard to trust people

sorry for some of the irrelevant content in my post, just thought I'd share my mind

 

[ThanatosVI]

I'm sorry. I'm new to the audiophile community and didn't even know I could tag him here. He's probably too busy to respond anyway.

I asked because I value community feedback (the collective) as much, if not more, than YT reviewers, because these are people who really care about the subject, and have undoubtedly spent their valuable money on a set of cans after traversing the same information I had to. Reviewers can lose touch with reality given the volumes they go through, as well as the potential for bias when you're probably approached form various marketing teams who, naturally, leverage the opportunity to reach people by offering affiliation benefits. Affiliations don't need to be direct, btw. Exclusive invitations to events, access to pre-production equipment, preferential treatment, all serve to bias a reviewer. Just because they aren't forced to give a positive review, doesn't mean they aren't biased because they know what the "wrong" kind of review would do to their relationship with certain companies... That's just the reality. Trade & commerce above all else. I'm a software engineer/architect by trade, and am consulting for a "certain" big corp (fat sigh, I know... ). I had to undergo strict compliance training, which involves exams. In this training, "bribery" is very specifically described through various case studies. Simply accepting a dinner invite from a party, constitutes as "bribery". No money needs to change hands. It's very clearly explained that it serves to bias an individual, and even slight bias, affects outcomes... That's why I turn to forums, reddit, etc to hear from the community, and tug at common threads, to slowly creep towards a conclusion. According to the compliance training, and my own reasoning, accepting a loan to review a headphone would constitute as creating a marginal subconscious bias. so... It's hard to trust people

sorry for some of the irrelevant content in my post, just thought I'd share my mind

You are well aware of the effects of bias and such. These obviously also exist in the forum, often easily tied to their respective threads.

I.e. if you ask in the Elite thread which headphone is "superior" the majority will say the Elite
While if you ask the exact same question in the LCD-5 thread, the majority there will say the LCD-5.
Often this comes from people who like a certain headphone stick around in the respective thread, while they do less so in other threads.
However there is often also a subconscious bias to "defend" ones investment choice against others etc.
You can imagine a plethora of reasons why one could be biased one way or the other.

Unless one of the options is clearly superior, you will often detect some bias towards the headphone that the thread is dedicated to.

It takes time, patience and a lot of experience to ellicit which opinions are valuable for yourself and which aren't.
The majority of Youtube reviewers have opinions that never match with my own when I heard the headphone in question myself, so with time I knew which persons I could trust and which persons not so much.

Therefore I want to encourage you in your plan to actually audition both headphones for yourself, side by side. This is the only foolproof way to get the true answre on how things compare.

Also no need to apologize for sharing your mind, this is a forum meant for just that.

 

[artisandro]

You are well aware of the effects of bias and such. These obviously also exist in the forum, often easily tied to their respective threads.

I.e. if you ask in the Elite thread which headphone is "superior" the majority will say the Elite
While if you ask the exact same question in the LCD-5 thread, the majority there will say the LCD-5.
Often this comes from people who like a certain headphone stick around in the respective thread, while they do less so in other threads.
However there is often also a subconscious bias to "defend" ones investment choice against others etc.
You can imagine a plethora of reasons why one could be biased one way or the other.

Unless one of the options is clearly superior, you will often detect some bias towards the headphone that the thread is dedicated to.

It takes time, patience and a lot of experience to ellicit which opinions are valuable for yourself and which aren't.
The majority of Youtube reviewers have opinions that never match with my own when I heard the headphone in question myself, so with time I knew which persons I could trust and which persons not so much.

Therefore I want to encourage you in your plan to actually audition both headphones for yourself, side by side. This is the only foolproof way to get the true answre on how things compare.

Also no need to apologize for sharing your mind, this is a forum meant for just that.

Aye, very good points here. Definitely aware of the biases that would appear in this thread, but it's good to be reminded of them. My goal was to attempt to ascertain whether anyone here has listened to the LCD-5s and concluded that the Meze Elites are "less resolving" and "less technically capable" than the LCD-5s, because the only group that would have listened to the Meze Elites extensively would be in this thread. Whether the Elites have more emphasis in one area of the spectrum vs another, is a different question and could be resolved with light EQ.

This is why I can't conclude anything from any single source, and can only try to pull at common threads. I've read almost all the LCD-5 and the Meze Elite threads. It's clear that the LCD-5s are more tuned like Studio Monitors out of the box, and that "audiophiles" EQ a bit of the lows back into the LCD-5s. I could, in turn, EQ the Meze Elites by cutting the mid bass and the bass, which would increase clarity in the top-end. What I was concerned with, is if the LCD-5s are "objectively technically better", then they would respond to EQ better than the Meze Elites, and that's what I would have an issue with.

The benefit of the LCD-5 is that I probably wouldn't need to EQ it. It's quite flat right out of the box. But, where I am, the LCD-5 is £1000 more expensive than the Elites, and they aren't quite as comfortable for me. That doesn't matter though, at this price range, if it produces better results and is practical, spending a bit extra is better than spending 4/5 of the same amount for an inferior product that you'll replace a year later... I'm also willing to sacrifice comfort for less hours in the studio trying to get a good translation.

I will book a side-by-side listen at a dealer for this week, and will try to do some rough EQ on the spot to try get them to be more like a flat studio monitor curve (more like the LCD-5s), and then listen. I doubt that's going to be conclusive, because I know that it takes at least a week or two for the ears to adjust to a sound signature, but it will help with a decision which is all I really need atm. Either way, my ears will adjust, and eventually I'll produce what I want because I use reference tracks heavily in my workflow anyway...

I'll be back to update with my findings. Hopefully I can get it done before Xmas holiday season, otherwise I'll report back in the New Year.

Thanks for all the input, and putting up with my ridiculous, unanswerable questions. ROFL

 

[Resolve]

I imagine @Resolve would be far more likely to respond if tagged.

FWIW, I did an informal A/B with the Elite and LCD-5 about six months ago, and I have to agree with the "reviewers". Switching to the LCD-5 resulted in an obvious increase in clarity, spaciousness, and speed. In fact, the first thought that came to my mind was "better technically".

Mind you, I don't dislike the Elite. It's just that in a world where a used Susvara cost me $3300, and I don’t need portability, I simply don't have a reason to buy it. YMMV.

Yeah, but like others have mentioned in this thread already, these discussions aren't exactly a blank canvas, nor would I expect them to be. What you find is that anytime you have an opinion that a given product isn't the best thing ever or find something to you don't like about it, you will inevitably get criticism from people who think it is. At least for reviewers who are comfortable giving criticism. But because of that I don't tend to participate in these threads all that much.

What I will say is that... if I couldn't EQ, yeah I'd probably take the Elite.

 

[artisandro]

Yeah, but like others have mentioned in this thread already, these discussions aren't exactly a blank canvas, nor would I expect them to be. What you find is that anytime you have an opinion that a given product isn't the best thing ever or find something to you don't like about it, you will inevitably get criticism from people who think it is. At least for reviewers who are comfortable giving criticism. But because of that I don't tend to participate in these threads all that much.

What I will say is that... if I couldn't EQ, yeah I'd probably take the Elite.

It's nice of you to respond to the thread!

I would expect that there will always be someone who is displeased with your opinion. It's impossible to please everyone. And, if you honestly think that the Meze Elites are technically inferior to the LCD-5s, well, that's perfectly valid. That's exactly the information I'm after, and why I'm in this thread. I just couldn't find anything, technically, on paper, that would suggest that, unless it has something to do with the physical build or earpads that just make the LCD-5s sound quality objectively better. Which is a distinct possibility. Some sense of objectivity does exist, because, for example, we can make statements like, "Audio Technica M40x are objectively lesser in terms of sound quality when compared to LCD-5.". This is because, objectively, the latter was made with more expensive, higher quality materials and technology.

I don't own either headphone, so I have no reason to be biased. I just want the best headphone for mixing and mastering, and comfort is one of the variables that I'm using to assess which to buy. If both headphones, with EQ, are technically within the same sphere in terms of capability, then that makes the decision easier - get the more comfy one, and fix with EQ! However, given what I'm getting from most reviewers, it comes off as though the LCD-5s are just plain technically superior, even if they had exactly the same tuning. If this is true, screw comfort, screw looks, I choose the headphone that will make my investment more worth it. "Worth it" means better output, which means, mixes/masters that translate better. It's difficult for me because I get the sense that more mids/highs = "more detail" = "better resolution" = "more clarity" = "more speed" = "technically better". The conflation of these terms, from an engineering perspective, can really muddy the information being delivered.

If I boost 1-2db at 1200Hz, I get more clarity. That's textbook EQ theory. Bump at 5k would do the same, and would remove "musicality" due to tonal balance changes. I guess we'd call that presence. I don't know if "sound quality" or "resolution" can be derived from FR. In fact, one could probably only judge "quality" if FR are adjusted in order to be as equal as possible... If this is how you judge the quality of the sound produced by the headphones, with all the other variables remaining constant (the ones that can be affected), then that would certainly be a valid judgment on "quality" or "technical ceiling" or "resolution". Language... lol. Such a broken interface for information delivery/communication. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what generates most disagreement - the inability to communicate thoughts in the way that it was intended by the broadcaster/provider. Most of my arguments with my spouse are down to the damn broken nature of human-to-human communication. Language sucks, and then it goes through so many filters (emotion, mood, health status, IQ... bleh).

Given that you (Resolve) have a section dedicated to "with EQ", I would assume that you judged all the headphones in that category using EQ profiles that remove FR as a variable, in order to accurately judge the "technical quality" of the headphones. In that case, I take your rankings more seriously, because that would mean that the LCD-5s, in SOME objective sense to you, are technically superior, even if only slightly, which would probably be the case in the high end. And that's fine. And helpful to someone like me, who isn't going to buy 3-4 headphones at this level to collect and compare.

I hope I made sense somehow. I'll be listening to both with EQ myself, hopefully this week, and will feed back. Though I won't need to EQ the LCD-5s, which is a strong point it's favour, tbh...

 

[Resolve]

I just couldn't find anything, technically, on paper, that would suggest that, unless it has something to do with the physical build or earpads that just make the LCD-5s sound quality objectively better.

Yeah it's a bit like trying to read tea leaves. At the moment there really isn't anything from the measured result that would indicate better 'technicality', and it's one of the reasons I hate that term. It's basically just a subjective judgment about how 'resolving' or 'clear' or 'spacious' or 'dynamic' something sounds. So these are not descriptions of anything OTHER than aspects of the experience. That's also what Crinacle's list is based on, as is his tonal-technical dichotomy, which is a great read.

In my experience, when it comes to planar driver development, the key factor that contributes to better and worse, when all else is equal, is the diaphragm material. So you can get the headphones to look the same on the graph, but one will still sound different and often better/worse. And then folks will indicate other metrics that might seem like they mean something but actually don't, like CSD or square wave or THD... we've done a deep dive on this topic and with headphones, unless things are very wrong, they aren't important indicators to pay attention to beyond FR. So... unfortunately that puts your search back to square one.

Now, the last thing I'll say on this is that what one person finds to be 'good' isn't necessarily what another person is subjectively keying in on. There are trends of course, like those of us who use the same rhetoric and know how each other are using it will agree more often than not. I mentioned Crin before, but there are a bunch of us who evaluate similarly and use similar language to describe our experiences, and in that world there is a lot of agreement when it comes to our judgments about this stuff. But because we can't expect everyone to be on the same page for what 'good' is, the kind of disagreement you see here is bound to happen. At the same time, we have to genuinely report our experiences with things - because measurement rigs aren't actual humans, and anyone who has spent a long time evaluating and measuring will know that they don't provide the full picture when it comes to the experience. At least... not yet.

 

[jlbrach]

What I don't get is some reviewers stating that the Meze Elite is technically not as good as the LCD-5. I'm an audio engineer, and I can't understand what they base that assessment on?

I can see that the Meze Elite THD is better than Audeze LCD-5. I can see that the Elite's resolution is 3Hz - 112KHz, whereas the Audeze LCD-5 caps at 50KHz. Yeah, we can't hear that high or low, but that is a statement of the operating frequency, which means that when we reach the range of human hearing, that the headphones are outputting well above & below that operating frequency, meaning less distortion. These are marginal, I know. But why would someone like Resolve, claim objectively that the Meze Elite is not technically up to the level of the Audeze LCD-5? Could someone explain to me what this is based on? He must be aware that an FR that focuses on mids would sound more "detailed", right? That's an EQ issue? So, I think I must be missing something here...

Resolve placed the Meze Elites in Tier 3, even with EQ, in his tier list... Whereas the LCD-5s feature at Tier 1, 2nd place. And I consistently hear from reviewers that the Meze Elite are, technically not up to par to the LCD-5. Could someone explain to this idiot (me) what I am missing? Are the components of a lesser quality?

Appreciate the time, folks... Hope you're all having a nice weekend

it is all subjective...i had an empyrean and it definitely was not as detailed as my other HP's but why bother over peoples subjective views if you like the elite best just enjoy it

 

[artisandro]

Yeah it's a bit like trying to read tea leaves. At the moment there really isn't anything from the measured result that would indicate better 'technicality', and it's one of the reasons I hate that term. It's basically just a subjective judgment about how 'resolving' or 'clear' or 'spacious' or 'dynamic' something sounds. So these are not descriptions of anything OTHER than aspects of the experience. That's also what Crinacle's list is based on, as is his tonal-technical dichotomy, which is a great read.

In my experience, when it comes to planar driver development, the key factor that contributes to better and worse, when all else is equal, is the diaphragm material. So you can get the headphones to look the same on the graph, but one will still sound different and often better/worse. And then folks will indicate other metrics that might seem like they mean something but actually don't, like CSD or square wave or THD... we've done a deep dive on this topic and with headphones, unless things are very wrong, they aren't important indicators to pay attention to beyond FR. So... unfortunately that puts your search back to square one.

Now, the last thing I'll say on this is that what one person finds to be 'good' isn't necessarily what another person is subjectively keying in on. There are trends of course, like those of us who use the same rhetoric and know how each other are using it will agree more often than not. I mentioned Crin before, but there are a bunch of us who evaluate similarly and use similar language to describe our experiences, and in that world there is a lot of agreement when it comes to our judgments about this stuff. But because we can't expect everyone to be on the same page for what 'good' is, the kind of disagreement you see here is bound to happen. At the same time, we have to genuinely report our experiences with things - because measurement rigs aren't actual humans, and anyone who has spent a long time evaluating and measuring will know that they don't provide the full picture when it comes to the experience. At least... not yet.

Yeah can't really argue with this.

It's cold over here on square one.... bit of a mild arctic breeze...

 

[Resolve]

Yeah can't really argue with this.

It's cold over here on square one.... bit of a mild arctic breeze...

hahah we're all there in some respect. If this stuff were easy to predict from a graph then there would be far less disagreement. But I do think that stuff is the frontier the scientists or evaluators in this space need to explore. Not necessarily for 'better' since that's all subjective still, but at the very least for 'different', and in what ways things are different along those dimensions.

 

[artisandro]

hahah we're all there in some respect. If this stuff were easy to predict from a graph then there would be far less disagreement. But I do think that stuff is the frontier the scientists or evaluators in this space need to explore. Not necessarily for 'better' since that's all subjective still, but at the very least for 'different', and in what ways things are different along those dimensions.

makes sense to me.

at least one thing we all have in common is recognising that sound is magical. makes this life experience a bit more enjoyable, and mysterious. props to the scientists and engineers pushing the exploration thereof, deeper. and to us, who fund them endlessly - hahahahahaha.

thanks for all the opinions, it will help me make the decision on the day. I'll come back to let you know what I did

Have a great week folks! I'll exit and stop talking crap now

 

[turbofeet]

It's all good
At the end of the day any review is someones opinion. We all hear differently and we all have different preferences.

I love the Elite because music sounds wonderful on them and isn't that the point? It is to me and so that is my preference.

Throw them high end gear and the technically they are superb in that regard as well.

Its a wonderful balance.

I'd imagine their natural tonality may serve you well with your mixing.

You need to audition them to decide whether you feel the same and to ensure they work for your purposes.

Do let us know the outcome.

 

[Arcamera]

Anyone have experience with the new ZMF Caldera? I'm curious how they compare/contrast with the Elite.