[Solude]

Depends on your point of view.  The LCD-3 are more different than just 'better'.  Case and point, I had the LCD-3, rolled tons of amps with them and a few sources but simply couldn't get them where I wanted so... back to the LCD-2

 

[wizia]

Black sockets. It's printed as LCD-2 on each side of the cups so maybe right headphones but LCD3s cables? That's weird huh

 

[TheGrumpyOldMan]

Well, they both use the same cables, maybe Audeze or the dealer was just nice enough to throw the XLR ones in there. The stock cables are frankly not that fancy and expensive...

 

[silversurfer616]

....and not overwhelmingly good compared to a high quality aftermarket one!

 

[Barry S]

....and not overwhelmingly good compared to a high quality aftermarket one!

That's right--they're only as exactly good as a high quality aftermarket cable.

 

[silversurfer616]

You've got the wrong aftermarket cable,me thinks!

 

[Solude]

Nods.  Because Audeze went with the layout they did the stock cable is good but has room for improvement.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

Depends on your point of view.  The LCD-3 are more different than just 'better'.  Case and point, I had the LCD-3, rolled tons of amps with them and a few sources but simply couldn't get them where I wanted so... back to the LCD-2

Nope...sorry, the LCD-3s are simply better. 

 
But they are harder to get right as they (like the HD800s) are picky (really picky) of upstream gear.

 

[preproman]

Quote:

Nope...sorry, the LCD-3s are simply better. 

 
But they are harder to get right as they (like the HD800s) are picky (really picky) of upstream gear.

 
I do find them to be better IMO.  However, to me they don't seem to be very picky to upstream gear.  SS amps that is..

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

 
I do find them to be better IMO.  However, to me they don't seem to be very picky to upstream gear.  SS amps that is..

They were picky with amps that I loved with the LCD-2 like the WA2, Lyr and Concerto. On those amps, they sounded rather dull. But on my Liquid Fire and GS-X, a whole different story! 

 

[Solude]

To each their own.  Technically work on the LCD-2 never stopped and measurement wise they've always been better than LCD-3, especially on noise floor and resonance.  But in the end the LCD-3 needed such aggressive gear to wake up that it had to go.
 
Confirmed once the LCD-2 landed.  My best pairing with the LCD-3 was too much and I sold it right away.  Now I can go back to neutral amps and get the same natural result that took aggressive amps to achieve.
 
That said if you prefer a more passive sound... the LCD-3 is certainly more up your alley.  Or put more bluntly... if you can keep the HD800 for more than a week, the LCD-3 might also work  It's also the same reason I dropped the Stax SR-007 MkI for the LCD-2 Rev1.  Though perhaps technically better it also had a more passive presentation.  Likely a big reason for not jumping on the SR-009 other than the monster price

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

To each their own.  Technically work on the LCD-2 never stopped and measurement wise they've always been better than LCD-3, especially on noise floor and resonance.  But in the end the LCD-3 needed such aggressive gear to wake up that it had to go.
 
Confirmed once the LCD-2 landed.  My best pairing with the LCD-3 was too much and I sold it right away.  Now I can go back to neutral amps and get the same natural result that took aggressive amps to achieve.
 
That said if you prefer a more passive sound... the LCD-3 is certainly more up your alley.  Or put more bluntly... if you can keep the HD800 for more than a week, the LCD-3 might also work  It's also the same reason I dropped the Stax SR-007 MkI for the LCD-2 Rev1.  Though perhaps technically better it also had a more passive presentation.  Likely a big reason for not jumping on the SR-009 other than the monster price

Measurement wise, I beg to differ buddy. Namely the 300Hz square wave. The second leading peak on the LCD-3 is smaller in comparison to the LCD-2. Talking it over with Tyll, he believes that is the reason for the smaller sound staging on the LCD-2s...you're hearing the same thing twice. Once I heard the more open LCD-3s (with better detail retrieval) I couldn't go back to the LCD-2s (and their somewhat "spikier" treble and withdrawn mids from 1-2kHz ish...comparatively only speaking of course).
 
Too bad you didn't hold onto them for your GS-X or B-22 to arrive. Would have enjoyed the comparisons.

 

[Xcalibur255]

Quote:

Measurement wise, I beg to differ buddy. Namely the 300Hz square wave. The second leading peak on the LCD-3 is smaller in comparison to the LCD-2. Talking it over with Tyll, he believes that is the reason for the smaller sound staging on the LCD-2s...you're hearing the same thing twice. Once I heard the more open LCD-3s (with better detail retrieval) I couldn't go back to the LCD-2s (and their somewhat "spikier" treble and withdrawn mids from 1-2kHz ish...comparatively only speaking of course).
 
Too bad you didn't hold onto them for your GS-X or B-22 to arrive. Would have enjoyed the comparisons.

This seems to be what I hear too.  A lack of openness because of a certain amount of cancellation at play.  Sort of like a home theater where somebody went a little overboard on room treatments is what the sound reminds me of.
 
FWIW I think I can chalk up my resonance issue on piano to a driver break-in phenomenon strange enough.  The issue was either gone or reduced when I retried the same problem tracks today.  All other variables are the same, including tube choices.

 

[Solude]

True but one blip doesn't tell the whole story.  The other side would be that the LCD-2 doesn't overshoot as much.  If you saw an amp with that much overshoot, would it be the 'better' amp?
 
But the 30Hz is sustained, the distortion is lower, it's free of resonance and new LCD-2 graphs are pretty good.
 
 

 

 
That's the problem I suppose with a moving target.  The LCD line ups keep changing.  But because we only recognize driver changes as new Revs... it's hard to compare today to yesterday.

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

True but one blip doesn't tell the whole story.  The other side would be that the LCD-2 doesn't overshoot as much.  If you saw an amp with that much overshoot, would it be the 'better' amp?
 
But the 30Hz is sustained, the distortion is lower, it's free of resonance and new LCD-2 graphs are pretty good.
 
 

 

 
That's the problem I suppose with a moving target.  The LCD line ups keep changing.  But because we only recognize driver changes as new Revs... it's hard to compare today to yesterday.

Actually the overshoot isn't much of an issue. The HD-800s over shoot even more (but then the square wave settles right down with no second blip whatsoever), and destroys both Audeze cans with regards to the imaging. The issue (according to Tyll) is the second blip in relation to the first...it can make us hear the same thing twice...and thus collapse the sound stage. But I hear you on the moving target thing...that and the repeatability of headphone measurements in general is a tough thing to quantify.