I will be publishing a 3-way review of LCD-R, LCD5 & CRBN in the coming days, but after catching up on this LCD5 discussion, and reading some drama, I feel like a few topics should be properly assessed or considered at least.
The tuning
People are going on about how these need EQ, and I thoroughly disagree. Truth be told, these are reference headphones, and are tuned this way. Now, I appreciate that, many others do as well, but let’s be honest, a reference tuning is not going to be as thrilling or generally “natural” sounding like most headphones tailored towards Harman.
Do I like Harman? The latest Harman target - No, not that much. But my preferred tuning is somewhere between what LCD5 graphs and Harman 2013 target. @Resolve is my favorite reviewer, and I agree whole-heartedly with nearly everything he writes, because he is self-aware and shows little-to-no bias - a true blessing to a community plagued with all sorts of goofs of reviewers. But even if I agree with most everything, personal preferences and subjective opinions will always lead to the end-user valuing different things with different weight to it.
When I got my LCD5, he suggested I try the EQ’s (as shown in this thread), which I appreciated, but disagreed on finding them to improve the LCD5. I prefer the stock tuning; I actually find it exceptional and barely needing any EQ, and found the EQ to take away from the effortlessness ever slightly. Who’s wrong, me, or Andrew? Nobody. Nobody is more wrong or right actually, we value different things, and it’s much more minute and nuanced of a difference, but at this level, audiophiles employ hyperbole a lot - we kind of need to to differentiate generally exceptional products that are more difficult to criticize. The upper midrange LCD5 shoutiness, to me, is really not an issue. I find it energetic, not shouty, but many genuinely find it shouty. I personally find the upper treble registers more bothersome with this headphone, at least, the lack of airiness. I find it to make the headphones sound less spacious, but then again, this probably helps with it being more in your face and engaging. I don’t listen to as much metal as Andrew does, can it be as simple as that? Where the musical pairing is more brutal in the upper mids 
? Yes and no maybe.
Everything is a balancing act.
Things need to be considered. Everyone who owns an LCD5 does not hear it the same due to multiple reasons. Here are some:
This is obvious, and LCD5 is going to sound good with everything in my opinion, but may play better with female vocals, or acoustic music, or film scores, or EDM, etc etc. You decide, but assessment of this product will be affected by the user’s musical preferences no matter what.
Low level listeners and high volume listeners do not hear the same output. With some headphones, it is drastic. No many in this hobby seem to think of this, but it’s a crucial component in assessing a product. With increase in volume, there is the smiley curve effect; bass & treble will always perceptually increase exponentially relative to the midrange as you increase volume. It adds “dynamics” or at least a sense of.
I will always remember my first time hearing the MrSpeakers Ether - a friend of mine claimed it sounded super dynamic, and upon listening to it, I found it to be quite literally one of the least dynamic things I’ve ever heard. Then I saw he was listening to them at least 20dB louder than I was. It was a completely different sounding headphone… Personally I found this scary lol.
- Your chain & signal path -
Turntable vs CD vs Streaming vs Lossless Files vs Youtube & or Soundclound playlists?
DAC - Delta-Sigma vs FPGA, vs R2R?
Amp - Tube or Solid State? Dedicated headphone amp or speaker taps? Power amp or integrated amp? Class A, AB, C or D circuit.
Tube topology - Single Ended, Push Pull, Output Transformerless?
Cables - Copper vs SPC vs Silver? Capacitance, number of strands, oxygen and noise shielding, braiding, etc. Am I being ridiculous, totally! But hey, it’s a factor.
- Listening habits & environment -
Do you listen late at night when you’re tired and want to wind down, or mid day while working and trying to be productive. Energize yourself through music, or let yourself go into a dark void and lose yourself in it?
Are you secluded and in a quiet environment, or are you in proximity of others?
Do you close your eyes when listening? (this is huge)
I’m crazy right? These are all such small things, surely it can’t yield that much of a difference in the listening experience? Well, compound all of the above together, and I’m sure we’re looking at, say, 5 to 10% variance from a mean. That is enough to swing the perception of a well tuned product from either: amazingly well tuned but warm, to amazingly well tuned but a bit too forward, or simply “wow these are so realistic I’m digging deep to try to find my gripes with it!”.
The Topic of EQ
Here is why EQ has, in my opinion, grown so much in its application in the hobby over the years.
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Audio gear, especially headphones and iem’s have surged in technical performance in the last decade especially, offering fantastic distortion measures (lack of), which is immediately more enticing for EQ application.
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There is no perfectly neutral headphone. No matter what anyone says, too many constraints at play. Driver in a chamber, positioning on head/ in-ear, energy dissipation, damping, physical anatomy of end-user’s head or ear & many more. You can bet your ass EQ is an awesome tool to overcome, or at least alter some of these challenges.
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Correction of properties of sound such as sense of dynamism (notably physical tactility), timbre, imaging and staging can all be altered through EQ, for better or for worse. However, EQ will always yield compression, no exception - luckily the human ear may be deaf to it with many of the TOTL offerings, again due to the fabulous accomplishments in reduced distortion which go beyond the limitations of our eardrum.
I don’t know why I rambled so much, but there’s no going back now…
All this to say, LCD5 and EQ seems to be a hot topic as of late, and I think it’s important to bridge the gap between “non EQ purists” and “EQ is life” clans of thought.
I myself am not the biggest fan of the essence of EQ’ing, yet grew to employ it as a tool over time. Ironically, I use EQ mostly on some of my favorite headphones (Susvara, HD800, LCD5 & KSE1500) but have many more good audio gears that I do not feel compelled to EQ. I am happy to have options which each have their strengths & weakness, for different use cases.
A little goes a long way with EQ. @Resolve 's provided EQ’s are examples of that. Reduction of shout, lower treble boost and especially the bass shelf helps it bring it in-line with Harman target, which is a proven success since it is standardization of many listener’s perception of natural. Most will agree with this sound.
Personally, I find it a bit too bassy, so borrowing the inputs of provided EQ, I reduced the shelf a bit, and also the small treble peaking filter by a decibel. Also reduced the upper mid dip by half a decibel. Ultimately, I actually preferred the stock sound a bit as it sounded faster and a bit more transparent, however, a bit dull and lifeless comparatively. I’ve realized that @Torq and I probably have a similar ear over the few months of being on here, and maybe a bit more old school than most.
I’ve settled on simply using LCD5 with a bass shelf of 2dB from 180Hz down & a treble shelf from 7kHz up of 1.4dB (approximations by memory here, don’t have access to my data) when I want a bit more emotion, otherwise, I actually just leave the LCD5 as is on my slam stack.
For all of you “muh +10dB Bass shelf” folks. I reckon you look into getting a completely different headphone straight up, as this headphone, albeit being fantastic with EQ, was not really intended as guilty pleasure fun, but more of a “correct” piece of audio equipment. HE6, TH900, LCD4 & 1266TC are all fabulous options for those closet bassheads.
