TheWuss
Reviewer at Headphone.Guru
most likely excessive compression in the soundtrack.
it is more prevalent than you think.
it is more prevalent than you think.
Just got a new toy to play with, in-keeping with the theme of this thread.
The LCD-3's comfort definitely seems to have improved over the LCD-2 rev. 2 I still have - the pads on this LCD-3 are super soft and the fit is much more snug and without the clamping being excessively tight to my preference.
Sonically, the LCD-3 is a clear but subtle step up from the LCD-2 and so-far I'm super-impressed. At first I thought it was dark-sounding, but there'e plenty of extension and neutrality; what I think gives it an almost dark-sounding character is the background which seems to be black as the middle of the night. Listening to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme now is like hearing the recording as if you were there but without the room ambience that the HD 800 so clearly reveals. It still sounds like there's less frequency extension than the HD 800 though. But that said it seems that the LCD-3 would probably be the easiest headphone to enjoy between it and the HD 800.
Right now I'm really enjoying this LCD-3 and may report back with further impressions.
I want the vegan pads.
What about LCD2?
Absolutely agree. We all hear differently so when you cross certain price boundaries, it really comes down to taste. What I do think we can agree on to a larger extent is that certain headphones (only looking at still in production models) hold close performance levels, such as IMO, the Hifiman HE-6, LCD-3 (rma'd), Stax 007 m2, Stax 009 and HD-800 forming the top tier of performance, followed by IMO again, a second tier consisting of the Hifiman HE-500, Beyerdynamic T1, Grado PS1000, Stax SR-507,Sony MDR-SA5000 and Sennheiser HD-650. These class divisions are still debatable (I'm sure some people would question the HD-650s inclusion in "tier 2") but it's probably easier to group headphones by boundaries rather than as "best" or "second best" as that would be more subjective.