Audeze LCD-2

[jvlgato]

Required class for those double majoring in Psychology and English.

[The Monkey]

psychosemantics sounds like a great college class.

Heh. I'm pretty sure I took that at Vassar.

[mypasswordis]

How about sending them to me to mod/tinker with, Ric.

[emelius]

better ask MarkL...he's obviously the authority here & it's readily obvious that your LCD-2 need ~$400 worth of memory foam & exotic balsa wood...

[blessingx]

A 02? An O2? In the minority in that I haven't been much of a fan most of the rigs I've heard.

I reported this in my first impressions, so yeah, it's there in the background.

You ever get over it? Right now it's really irritating. Like run back to a HD800 irritating.

I may try an exotic salsa mod first.

[HeadphoneAddict]

A 02? An O2? In the minority in that I haven't been much of a fan most of the rigs I've heard.

You ever get over it? Right now it's really irritating. Like run back to a HD800 irritating.

I may try an exotic salsa mod first.

You do start to get used to it over time, and it's better with some gear than others - like worse with my WA6 and better with my DACmini, or worse with my Apogee mini-DAC as source and better with my CDP-8 as source. It's easiest to hear with classical and piano music for me.

[Tyll Hertsens]

A few days ago I was PMing with someone over on the other site on the LCD2s, and he mentioned a 'resonance/reverb' issue with them that got in the way of his enjoyment. ....... Everyone (including myself) says these are slightly warm, organic sounding cans, but is that at least partially because of a exaggerated resonance-like issue often present? Or am I crazy?

You're crazy ... but you still may be right.

I came across this in measuring:

It appears that the LCD-2 is storing a little energy, and releasing is some 400uSec later. The second bump on the 300Hz square wave, and the little lump of wiggle after the spike on the impulse response may indicate what you guys are talking about. 400uSec is not a long time, but it is about the timescale of the inter-aural time difference between ears with a 30 degree off axis speaker, so it's right at about the timescales that are used for localization, and I would expect your brain is able to make something of the artifact.

Whether this is the source of the "reverby" sound, I don't know, but it's possible.

[Voltron]

psychosemantics sounds like a great college class.

Or a post-punk band.

[blessingx]

You semantic psychos.

Tyll, that's pretty interesting. Not sure how often it's been discussed (HPA I missed your impressions), but rhythmdevils deserves credit for bringing it to my attention... and ruining my pleasure.

Once it's clearly heard it's kinda hard to get it out of ones minds eyes ears.

Edited April 12, 2011 by blessingx

[Dusty Chalk]

That wouldn't be the first headphone accused of having a "reverb-y" effect -- I want to say the W2002? And there was another one, but I'm not remembering...I think Juan may have been one of the people to have heard it -- Juan (if you're reading this) -- do you remember of what I speak?

Me, personally, never heard it, even on the headphones in question. I guess, having spent much time with Alesis Quadraverbs and other reverbs, I tend to gloss over them, and am able to hear the underlying source music. It's an interesting exercise -- to listen to the same thing through a variety of different reverbs, and then "dry" -- it gives your mind the information it needs to perform the subtraction, as it were.

Which is funny, because I think I'm much more sensitive to phase smearing.

Hey, Tyll -- where is the energy being stored, in the driver?

[K3cT]

Isn't a reverb the sign of the driver being under-amped? Or is it the other way round?

[Tyll Hertsens]

Hey, Tyll -- where is the energy being stored, in the driver?

Totally fucking guessing here, but I think it's air being over-compressed between the driver and the fabric coverings.

Edited April 12, 2011 by Tyll Hertsens

[CD44hi]

That wouldn't be the first headphone accused of having a "reverb-y" effect -- I want to say the W2002? And there was another one, but I'm not remembering...I think Juan may have been one of the people to have heard it -- Juan (if you're reading this) -- do you remember of what I speak?

Indeed the W2002 have been implicated, some say the qualias and believe it or not, the etys also reverb, which really surprised me. The ergo2 has some traces as well.

[catscratch]

K340 also had pretty bad reverb issues. Very echoey and colored sound in general. Not that I mind, it's still one of my favorite headphones.

[blessingx]

Indeed the W2002 have been implicated, some say the qualias and believe it or not, the etys also reverb, which really surprised me. The ergo2 has some traces as well.

Etys are surprising. Their decay is so quick you'd think it would be noticeable there.

Edited April 12, 2011 by blessingx

[Tyll Hertsens]

I've noticed the Etys have quite a bit of harmonic distortion. It could be that; I'll look into it at some point.

[dsavitsk]

Some people argue that the perceived big sound of DHTs is basically reverb from the DH filaments. Any correlation between people who like the LCD2 and people who like 300b/2a3/307a/etc headphone amps?

[nnotis]

I’m sorry the LCD2s have been ruined for you Blessingx. You’ve still got the JH-13s though. Even without considering this reflection problem, they’re essentially as good.

I wonder if the driver speed of the LCD-2s makes this more of a problem than it would be on a dynamic coil set? Even the HD-800s depict a much rounder looking square wave. Would a similar reflection be as clearly defined, and audible?

Have you tried taking off the grills?

Edit - Just to be clear, I can't hear the effect myself.

Edited April 14, 2011 by nnotis

[limp]

I've noticed the Etys have quite a bit of harmonic distortion. It could be that; I'll look into it at some point.

Oh, I'd love an in depth analysis of the ER/HFs

[dBel84]

Tyll, totally bloody awesome is all I can say. and I suspect know where it is coming from, it was part of the design trick to squeeze more efficiency out of them. I initially had serious doubts about the working theory as the LCD1 does not do this but the bass response is partly attributed to this layout. I can't say I heard this reverb, I didn't, but when people started to speak of it, I wondered where it might be coming from other than the pschosemantocaustic (not a typo) effect..dB

edit - taking the grills off will not change this

Edited April 14, 2011 by dBel84

[faust3d]

Tyll, totally bloody awesome is all I can say. and I suspect know where it is coming from, it was part of the design trick to squeeze more efficiency out of them. I initially had serious doubts about the working theory as the LCD1 does not do this but the bass response is partly attributed to this layout. I can't say I heard this reverb, I didn't, but when people started to speak of it, I wondered where it might be coming from other than the pschosemantocaustic (not a typo) effect..dB

edit - taking the grills off will not change this

do go on...

[tkam]

I've had my LCD-2's for several weeks and right now they rank in my top 3 all-time favorite phones - right alongside the O2 and L3K.

[recstar24]

Good to hear. Jvlgato's whorey set is definitely being enjoyed in Illinois.

[Dusty Chalk]

... whorey ...

You know, sometimes "whorey" is just what the doctor ordered.

[bhjazz]

You're crazy ... but you still may be right.

I came across this in measuring:

Tyll this is outstanding. Thanks for measuring and posting your results. I listened to these last year on some unfamiliar gear and didn't notice the issue. I suppose I should borrow a pair and try them out again with this info in mind. Now that I know, it'll probably stand out.