[goldendarko]

I think it's a good idea, but you would need some sort of baseline to compare it too, otherwise the results wouldn't really mean much. Not to mention people without any problems aren't as likely to be lurking a thread about how many people have had problems with their Audeze's. For comparison sake, I've owned 3 different Audeze's since 2010 and have never had a single issue, but I have had numerous issues with many other headphones, such as Hifiman, Grado's, Sennheisers, etc. so you would need to be able to compare the failure rate with other similarly priced headphones to really get an idea of how big an issue this is.

 

[nixir]

 
Give us a better, more clear ratio of those who have experienced issues against those that haven't.
 
I'd think/hope that there's a lot of lurkers on here. Some may have issues but never post about it and just read - and some the other way around.
 
I'd hope a poll may encourage them to surface, and get a good idea of how many people on here haven't had any issues compared to those that have.
 
To make things more interesting we could add another question in the poll, like ''who here has slept with a prostitute?'' just to spice things up, maybe..
 
Let me know what you think.

Agreed. Long time lurker here, and I had problems with cracked rings on my LCD-2s, went to my dealer to purchase the LCD-3s a few weeks ago and saw cracks on both cups on the display model! Dealer is the in the process of exchanging them and said the phones were only put on display since November, 2014.

 

[mscott58]

 
Give us a better, more clear ratio of those who have experienced issues against those that haven't.
 
I'd think/hope that there's a lot of lurkers on here. Some may have issues but never post about it and just read - and some the other way around.
 
I'd hope a poll may encourage them to surface, and get a good idea of how many people on here haven't had any issues compared to those that have.
 
To make things more interesting we could add another question in the poll, like ''who here has slept with a prostitute?'' just to spice things up, maybe..
 
Let me know what you think.

A poll is an interesting concept, but you'd be impacted by selection bias as the sample set of respondents would most likely not be representative of the overall population. People who have had issues would be more likely to respond than those who have not. Very hard to get around this. Best data of course would be from Audeze themselves, who should hopefully keep track of their failure rates, both at the macro (e.g. model) and micro (e.g. specific batches) levels. Cheers 

 

[Shazb0t]

I was looking at picking up a used pair, but all this failure talk and the amount of different users affected has definitely put me off.

 

[potkettleblack]

This is all progress of a kind, so thank you all for the feedback so far.
 
 

 
Agreed. Long time lurker here, and I had problems with cracked rings on my LCD-2s, went to my dealer to purchase the LCD-3s a few weeks ago and saw cracks on both cups on the display model! Dealer is the in the process of exchanging them and said the phones were only put on display since November, 2014.

Thanks for speaking up.
 
I went to my dealer about two weeks. I phoned him after I purchased the x's to ask about the returns he's had, just for a bit of reassurance. Apparently hifi lounge are the biggest seller of Audeze's in the UK. He said he's had one come back for a driver issue and no other issues at all. 

 

[Argo Duck]

Thanks potkettleblack for outlining a reason to do the poll. I guess I wonder what we would do with this "more clear ratio". Practically, I suppose future buyers might factor it into their buying decision? And those with problems now could decide "keeping my repaired LCD is/is not a risk I'm ready to take"?

I agree with mscott58 and goldendarko - selection bias is worries me too and for the same reasons (except I think avid fans might be likely to vote too, leaving a potentially large group in-between that doesn't vote); and we'd need a comparison. As well, recent serious problems notwithstanding, it would be most useful to know the proportion of recent problems. Early problems and Audeze's attempts to fix them are well documented. As well, margin of error comes into play until there are enough responses, even supposing there is no selection bias. Conclusions drawn from first responses are usually horribly misleading (hence we have a rule in research - don't look at your data until you've met your pre-determined sample size!).

Audez'e's people seem to monitor these threads often. Something that would be useful IMHO is an undertaking from them. A statement like "we will let you know the cause and what we're doing to fix it as soon as we figure it out ourselves" would be welcome and something they've done before.

 

[mowglycdb]

The cracking issue must have to do with them being exposed to very dry conditions, where I live it's usually dry. I had that problem with my LCD-3, (the 2's never had them)

 

[Somphon]

  Then you've never dropped the throttle on a 500 hp muscle car. Same rush you get from LCD3s

 
Seriously, I'm not an Audeze fanboy but the failures get a lot more attention on this site than the ones that never break. Would it be possible to take a poll of all LCD3 owners on this site, asking how many times as your LCD3 gone in for repair. Anybody know how to do that? It might help give us some perspective, and I'm sure Audeze would never publish those statistics.

I would agree with the muscle car thing if we are talking about Stax 009 or Abyss. Anyway, muscle cars are often modified to extract maximum performance for limited usage, certainly not what LCD-3 is all about.. To compare LCD-3, it would be like saying its ok for merc or bmw to consistently fails. 
 
Also I don't think a poll would make any real representation. What I found to be good representation is the amount of responds to each thread in Head-fi. Look at the previous CES launch of new product where Audeze EL8 gather so much responds while Hugo TT thread is quite vacant. I think what people say here are already good enough for Audeze to take notice. They should be responding to us here. Many other manufacturer are very active and it benefits all of us. 
 

  The cracking issue must have to do with them being exposed to very dry conditions, where I live it's usually dry. I had that problem with my LCD-3, (the 2's never had them)
 

 
I don't think cracking issue is due to dry or humid in a manufactured product. The main issue is that they were not treated well. 
I buy a lot of wooden furniture and every time it cracks, its due to manufacturing process, not our environment. That's why the new LCDs does not need the wax as they now state, new treatment process. So the past issue of cracked HP is because Audeze was selling us 2000$ headphone with untreated wood. Its quite a basic 101 but they didn't bother. 

 

[preproman]

  I was looking at picking up a used pair, but all this failure talk and the amount of different users affected has definitely put me off.

 
It does sound very alarming about the amount of failures and cracked wood that's going on.  However, this does not represent the majority.  I've had the LCD-2.2, LCD-3C and now the LCD-3F without any failures or wood issues.  So there's a lot of LCD users out there that hasn't had any issues.
 
"KNOCK ON WOOD"  no pun intended.
 

Audez'e's people seem to monitor these threads often. Something that would be useful IMHO is an undertaking from them. A statement like "we will let you know the cause and what we're doing to fix it as soon as we figure it out ourselves" would be welcome and something they've done before.

 
 
This is spot on.  It's time for a statement from the company.

 

[bfreedma]

  The cracking issue must have to do with them being exposed to very dry conditions, where I live it's usually dry. I had that problem with my LCD-3, (the 2's never had them)

 
I don't think climate is the cause.  I certainly don't live anywhere abnormally wet or dry.
Looking at the various pictures of cracked LCD3s, the problem looks to be from the stress put on the wood near where the screws attach the outer plate to the rest of the headphone.  Whether the screws are too tight or the wood is too thin to handle the stresses of the screw seems the most likely cause to me.
 
It just seems unlikely to me that dry climate would cause the wood ring to crack all the way through across the entire ring in a single event.  It does look like thinner pieces of Zebrano are prone to cracking.  Apparently, Mercedes and Cadillac both used it for a while but gave up because of the cracking issues.  Those were mostly veneers though, so that may not relate to the LCD3 problems.

 

[bfreedma]

  I would agree with the muscle car thing if we are talking about Stax 009 or Abyss. Anyway, muscle cars are often modified to extract maximum performance for limited usage, certainly not what LCD-3 is all about.. To compare LCD-3, it would be like saying its ok for merc or bmw to consistently fails. 
 
Also I don't think a poll would make any real representation. What I found to be good representation is the amount of responds to each thread in Head-fi. Look at the previous CES launch of new product where Audeze EL8 gather so much responds while Hugo TT thread is quite vacant. I think what people say here are already good enough for Audeze to take notice. They should be responding to us here. Many other manufacturer are very active and it benefits all of us. 
 
 
I don't think cracking issue is due to dry or humid in a manufactured product. The main issue is that they were not treated well. 
I buy a lot of wooden furniture and every time it cracks, its due to manufacturing process, not our environment. That's why the new LCDs does not need the wax as they now state, new treatment process. So the past issue of cracked HP is because Audeze was selling us 2000$ headphone with untreated wood. Its quite a basic 101 but they didn't bother. 

 
Yeah, but....
 
My LCD3s that cracked are from the new batch that doesn't need treatment and underwent the "new" construction process.
 
My uneducated guess:  The stress on the wood from bending it into such a tight circle is making it more susceptible to cracking.  Add in a few screws to wood under stress and.....

 

[pearljam50000]

Grado has been making wooden cups for years, and that's the reason they don't crack. they have years of e

xperience​

 ,wood is very hard to work with.​

 

[Sweetmeat]

@bfreedma I believe the cups are turned on a lathe not bent. You can tell because the grain goes through both sides.

 

[bfreedma]

@bfreedma I believe the cups are turned on a lathe not bent. You can tell because the grain goes through both sides.

Thanks - appreciate the woodworking knowledge.

 

[bigfatpaulie]

There was video, but I could not find it after a quick Google search, that showed how the wood cups were made on the LCD3's.  They are cut out of a single piece of wood and not bent.