for me with the isien 20 the leakage isn’t that bad but the isolation can be an issue…
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I’m new here but figured I join in the convo… 
Love the iSine20’s but agree on the isolation, they don’t do that well at all. I tend not to have too much issue with leakage unless they are up real loud. The Audeze folks let me try the i4’s… loved them but not sure I’m ready to drop that kinda money on IEMs since I don’t listen to them that much unless on travel. The i3’s have got my interest though.
I’ve been begging Audeze to do a closed back version of their IEMs but I’d imagine if they are it’d be different than the form factor the current models have and fit further in the ear.
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Don’t know where to begin w/my thoughts, after briefly testing the 3s in store, relatively quiet environment. I’m not sure if this is the same forum that existed back in the 90’s when Tyll was still @headphone, when I 1st bought the Airhead AA powered amp to try to pair with HD600s(didn’t work so well, not nearly enough power). Anyway, it’s a counterpoint that would get plenty of hate on Head-fi…which I no longer post to b/c of juvenille TeamHF moderation/hypocrisy to the extreme>I don’t roll that way, will not be on this forum for long if the same style of modding is employed here…just saying.
Bck to lcdi3’s, 1st time listening to any of the Sine line…and I hated it severely. Then a funny thing happened, after messing with settings/amping/ciper cable BT…Mark from Audeze was on hand to demo the soon to be released LCD24s. Put those cans on my head, and was blown away, difference was night & day…beyond mind-boggling, not quite an epiphany…doesn’t happend like that for me 
. I’ll put my thoughts on the 24s in that thread. My source unfortunately was an older iPhone + ultra low-fi resolution WiFi youtube vids…wasn’t told I needed to supply my own source material/player.
Should also have in my profile, age 60+, hearing not so great, but likely still better than Tyll, my treble limit is now down to 12khz, was 15 in my 50’s…all going down hill now. But like Dre, still Dre…hear enough to be apparently ultra finicky in what sounds I like to hear. Fan of electrostats since only time I heard Stax Lamda @$800 bck in early 90s? Not much of a fan of planar, but haven’t heard that many, higher end HifiMans sound ‘blacker’ too me…LCD24s outclasses orig LCD2s by a country mile-huge, huge difference, imho. What I could not get my head around is why anyone likes the Sine series at all??? Guy in the store, doesn own/use iPhones, didn’t know that trying to run 3s directly from an iphone would be unimpressive, but was much worse via the Audeze BT cable, I couldn’t get to 50% of my normal listening volume, which makes this combo useless. After doing the ciper cable from the iPhone lightning port, then you get some DSP fakery going on that makes the sound passable, but still nothing I’d ever spend even $20 on.
In fact, I prefer Apple earbuds that came with the old iphone over these $900 ‘audiophile grade’ planar? no dsp needed(though using Sonarworks true-fi trial seems to work Apple’s earbuds better, not $79 for True-fi better, as I constantly tweek all the settings from under 21yrs old, to 60+ female + maximum treble boost, like 20db).
And bumping up power doesn’t help. I asked for some amplification bc BT cipher cable was so incredibly weak…out came the Chord Hugo2, that was enough, lol. But ic3s just got louder, not better, same exact sound sig…which I detested, I spent 10mins with my fingers around the edges, trying to angle & reseat nozzle/tips for better seal, changed things a little, but not noticeably such that further tip rolling(already noted above review this would be a problem) would help. Read some bad press on the LCD24, saying it was flawed compared to LCD4s…whatever, if that reviewer didn’t like the LDC24s, can’t believe they would ever consider listening to the sine line, instead.
there was a guy, polarizing on the CL2 thread on HF; who did get a chance to listen to the lcdi4, and he still didn’t think much of the lcdi4 EQ’d, and here we have the CL2 camp that did not like the SS of the CL2. I still don’t understand the legions of sine fans, my ears just don’t hear what all of you are hearing…sigh.
Mpow T5 TWS @$45 have boomy bass, but on EDM, these cheapo TWS just slam the living daylights out of lcdi3s, and True-Fi EQ’d Apple earbuds don’t go too deep/loud full bodied bass, but still are more satsifying on same yt track played…this one, boomy bass/thumping deep, not earthquake rumble, but big enough.
Meh, maybe I’m just a sucker for pan flute sound in EDM, lmao.
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Welcome to the forum. That’s an interesting take on the i3’s. Everything else I’ve seen so far has been positive, but we all do have different ears. Looking forward to more of your thoughts on the 24’s in their thread.
Yeah if you don’t like the concept of EQ and DSP - this stuff won’t be up your alley. As I mentioned it’s sort of built into the whole idea of these IEMs. I understand the concern, but interestingly even some of the Audeze over-ear headphones are dramatically improved by using their ‘reveal’ EQ (looking at the LCD4). My understanding is that their driver implementation has certain limitations for tonality that they’re able to correct by using an EQ. But that also means that the default tonality they end up with for these headphones isn’t what they’d ideally end up with if those limitations didn’t exist. I think the same thing is going on with their isine and i3/4 stuff. It’s a solution to these challenges, and personally it’s one that I’m fine with because I am the type of person who listens at a desk with EQ APO open the whole time anyway, but I know there are a lot of people who simply won’t be doing that - and that’s fine too. I’d just recommend something with a better tonality out of the box.
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Hi and welcome @mulberry_madness.
I’d have to say this is a YMMV situation. I currently have the LCD-i3 setup with the Bluetooth cipher cable and I can take it to levels that would cause severe hearing damage.
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All I know, is that the BT Cipher cable synced to my ip6+, and I couldn’t possibly get anywhere near hearing level damage. Probably not even with the lighting cable either, but I was so unimpressed with the ‘improvement’ with that, I wanted more power . Hugo2 could easily get ear damaging levels, as I quickly found out with a very quick bump on the Hugo2’s volume ‘ball’ -very quick, as quickly down. Which iPhone? I know Apple put in louder speakers on the newer models, so perhaps they upped the output via lighting also? Not sure if the amp/dac in the Cipher lighting can add gain to lighting ports’ default output, not sure thow thats done. But idk, do I have hearing damage of the sorts that cannot easily be explained for these old ears? Doesn’t Audeze pre-burn their planners, so I assumed the pair that was being demo’d not a defective pair?
Anyway, I’ve got one more rant, then I"m out of this thread as my ears just don’t hear the same things many of you hear, I guess? Going to compare a decades worth or more of golden oldies to these. I can hardly believe what I’m reading now, I lose confidence in my own hearing, after reading reviews that line up on some hp/ep combos, but are so staggeringly inopposite on others. I cannot hope to find any hp/ep review that I could trust, until I listen to any given combo in the future. Wish the westcoast, in particular Los Angeles area, had an Audio46 store, like in NYC that I could get a good listen to…or one of those crammed little stores ppl post up of high-end TOTL’s in Tokyo available for listening to…though those don’t look like they are particularly quiet & I did not listen to the i3’s in a dead silent audio store, much quieter than a show like CanJam. Just frustrating to see all the acolades for these, when they sounded so blah to me…I mean really, really blah…meh, what’s this hype all about? now on to a rant about the recent headphonia review.
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Find a competent audiologist and get your hearing properly tested and profiled.
It’ll tell you quite specifically where you have hearing loss, and by how much based on progressive frequency bands.
I do this twice a year and have done since I was 18. Makes it much easier to understand why I might, for example, hear a headphone as bright that someone else thinks is neutral.
Did you check to see if the iOS volume limiter was enabled?
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I understand it can be frustrating when comparing reviews experiences to your own. As @Torq has mentioned in the people often exaggerate the things that they hear when discussing/reviewing gear. I am guilty of this myself and very often get caught up in the moment. Don’t doubt your own judgement and as you already know it’s always best to listen to a product yourself. I do get frustrated like you that there aren’t any great audio stores near me like the ones that often get mentioned. It is hard. Just dont let it spoil your audio journey. Good luck.
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Yeah, I also am guilty of this, I think like @Torq has said in other posts, the cause is due to trying to explain the nuances in a way that is easily conveyed. So, by using strong descriptors, it allows someone to better define what they are hearing even if it is more nuance in reality.
Always, the correct answer is to go with what you like, we are all different, even when having similar likes. No one is wrong in liking, or disliking any of these products =)
At the end of the day this is ultimately a selfish hobby, so go with what makes you happy, no need to justify it.
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Reviews of audio gear, especially headphones, can be written from one of two fundamental perspectives - the reviewer’s personal perspective or a neutral-signature/technicality perspective*.
BOTH of these perspectives, or approaches, require some work on the part of the reader in order to be useful/relevant.
Reviews written from a personal perspective require you to become familiar with the reviewer’s signature preferences, how they weight different technical characteristics (e.g. I place tone and detail as being 100x more important than stage for headphone listening) how they hear (i.e. their hearing profile), they they are consistent in these things (many aren’t) and then, of course, the readers’s own hearing profile is a massive factor too.
Any two reviewers, with different preferences and/or different hearing profiles is going to give a very different account of the same headphone.
Reviews written from a neutral/technicality perspective require the reader both to properly understand what “neutral” really is in the first place (most don’t, in my experience), and also to understand how their hearing profile relates to a perception of true neutrality. From a practical perspective, learning this requires exposure to neutral replay appropriately compensated for your hearing profile as part of the assimilation process. And better still, frequency-specific exploration, learning and practice in recognizing what is specifically what.
Without these elements you have no proper frame of reference for either type of review. And without that, there’s really no hope of a given reader being able to treat such things as personally useful, let alone “objective”.
*Notwithstanding that is almost, perhaps completely, impossible to not have some personal element or assessment creep into things, even if only subconsciously.
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This! lol,
I am very guilty of not being consistent I think 
I am more of an “emotional” type review writing (not that I write a lot of reviews lol). My favorite way to write now is to just stream of conscious write while listening. This definitely makes for inconsistancies due to picking up nuances as I go through different music and my brain acclimates to what I’m hearing. Plus I am usually imbibing some whiskey or rum…sooo… yeah 
But, I think the best you can do is find a reviewer that has similar likes to yourself, plus has reviewed things that you either have had or heard and you both had similar thoughts on the gear. That way if they like something, you at least have a baseline for a potential match (this does not always work out, but is at least better than going in blind).
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Nailed it.
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I also let emotions get in the way of objectivity and it ends up just being too subjective. Some people just have a talent for reviewing. This in no way detracts from the hard work they put into doing reviews. It’s not a process I find easy at all.
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Reading some more comments on the i3s, leaves me more perplexed.
Event I demo’d ic3s along with even more briefly LCD24 (not by choice, Mark from Audeze had failed to communicate to AVsource, he would be leaving @4PM w/the 24s…I got there ~3:30pm having read the event was from 12-6pm closing time):
If you believe one poster, that * was * what I thought I saw…brass accents on some Chord (Dave?), with a large upscaler?- placed in the ‘ensemble stand’ + blk color option like w/the Hugo2, ~$20k…uggh, beyond what I would ever buy, no point in my listening. I’d guess that store has $1Mil in inventory, all high-end stuff. No HifiMan, no Orpheus II
Wanted to try the Meze Empyrean, passed on the new $$$ earspeaker style some rave on, looks goofy, like a Treky/sci-fi convention…no time. As with just about any can’s no matter how positive most reviews are, always be some that find flaws/different preferences.
But this i3, flaws? I can’t understand, beyond flaws to my untrained/old ears, picky as they seem to be.
Not sure I’ll ever take Linus’ reviews other than with huge grain of salt.
“Audeze says all their products come pre-burned in” “comes with the typical dark background of planar-magnetics, although it isn’t pitch black to my ears.”
To my ears, LCD2, LCD24 is same, but HiFiMan’s low sensitivity HE6 does have blk, blk quiet background(400 series sound like toys in comparison) that I liked far more than the Audeze, like zoned LCD screen vs OLED
“ technicalities. It creates a holographic soundstage that’s bigger than any other IEM’s I have heard to date” “power the i3’s with my OnePlus smartphone”
…not on my ip6+, &I have it inside battery/case, which needed to be removed, lightning port was clean/dust free.
“Hugo2 manages to do like no other DAC/Amp is to transport the listener into the scene. The LCD-i3 manages to do exactly that with the British DAC/Amp. You get a holographic soundstage, that spreads for miles and miles. Width and depth are exceptional, couple that with very high resolution and sharp imaging and you got yourself a truly fantastic sounding pair.”
^all of his comments, for me on low-res 44k , all ‘weak sauce’ w/ic3s: frustrated I keep asking myself…where’s the beef? Where’s the bass, where’s anything? Like this Wendy’s ad for ‘swimwear’?
I’d have to be on LSD to get that kind of impression Linus did with any hp/ep, at which point I wouldn’t likely be able to concentrate on the music much,… though at Anaheim Stadium in my youth, ~6hrs into LSD, far back, mid-level seats, great view of Boston in the distance, best sounding ‘stadium’ wall–of-guitar-sound band ever> Don’t Look Back, ending jam on Piece of Mind…live recordings, DSD recordings…all fall flat in comparison. 4 decades later, still vaguely stuck in my mind. Heh, 4 decades later, I still remember the most popular song ‘More than a feeling’ didn’t work for me even in that atmosphere. Peaking on acid, don’t recall(prob wouldn’t remember sober either) Van Halen other than gimmicky faux parachuting into the stadium, Montrose, Heagar, Black Sabbath…do recall-played IronMan, but don’t remember anything about it…all gone now man, only the cheese is as it were
Only way I’ll ever experience the hype(rbole) of such 3D holographic ‘miles & miles’ wide proclamations is 8k video 22,2 channel sound room system setup as in this image—hurry up!, VR even better:
I digress.
btw, I’ve put the Apple earbuds, pulled out from more deeply seated/almost perfect ‘seal’ to just lightly sitting between anti Tragus, more like a ‘tab’ shape on my ear, to Tragus, the Intertragus notch
…sub-bass volume drops significantly while using True-Fi boosted 8db above ‘studio’ correction, which is about a 10db boost from non-EQ’d; as well as entire FR, but it’s still similar, just not nearly as impactful. …better than droll ic3s that I was trying/frustrated in angling w/my careful 2 fingers around the perimeter/frame to get a solid seal with the supplied medium size i3 eartips. Dullsville feeble planar sound, even with volume turned way up with Hugo2. Cipher cable direct out of lightning port surely does major DSP, much better but hardly impressive to me…especially when I only got 5+min try out of exact same tracks via lo-fi YT with LCD24s, just in another league altogether, should be @$3,500.
Do you all have a recommendation as to what tips I could place on ic3s, size/brand that should get me a hands free seal, should I go back in 6mo and try again? I don’t have a ultra-portable laptop or DAP, as a source, only ip6+ & 15” MBP, which I suppose I could d/l some higher res music to test with. Even though I never listen to FLAC or any high res music, it’s always ‘visual music’ YT videos these days whenever possible, Spotify (non-premium), when I can’t find something on YT.
Just for sake of argument, I could purchase ibasso dc-01 & dc-02, not sure which, couple Apple ‘camera kit/USB A to lightning port for ip6+, or out of the usb A port of the MBP…d/l some higher res music that I actually would listen to, Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean comes to mind, but I don’t particularly think that track has good dynamics, syn snare drum on that isn’t appealing to me/too harsh sounding, good bass beat though. waiting mod’s PM suggestion here on starting a thread which sub-forum for just that? Any available mods want to suggest right now?
13” ultra portable pictured in one image of in the head-fi thread, I believe was a customer’s, Audeze was raffling off Sine DX right at the time I got a quicky chance on the 24s. Must have been only 4-5 other customers participating in the raffle, when they came to me(bothered me), asked for my ticket, which I had to empty my pockets/ just gave up, never once removing the 24s while listening. Found ticket stuck in tangled earbuds cabling, gave it to them too late. Didn’t really matter that I could have sold the $599MSRP Sine DX, bought some pretty decent Chi-Fi iems, 2 pairs even. When Mark came to take his ball home(24s)…I was like “Noooo” get away from me, coitus interuptus, I’m having an eargasm, can’t you tell!!!
Is there such a thing as 3D ‘visual’ timbre? Pretty much the only Dire Straits track I listen to regularly: YT , Live Aid ’85, SOS, that part with the close-up shot of the Sax @7:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVZTP_kX5BE
…was it an ‘acid like flashback’ I was having? Even in low-res YT on my 1080p ip6+ screen, it was like a 3D timbre was there in the newly visual brass color of the Sax…how can that be J Linus & ic3, stfu & sit down, let the big boys play this game. Perhaps I have studio engineer ears then? Not! Like those Rich Beato mentions in this ‘seminal’ (snark) YT vid about young ‘golden ear’s that had big fail on Coldplay’s Sound of Science, it’s a cluster***k of v. congested sound, hardly the best track to try to distinguish FLAC from mp3 128kbs, even.
Glad I don’t have huge hearing loss in the 3-4khz range like those engineers. I probably like Apple’s buds, because I do have about 10db drop rt around 8k, where those peak ~6db+.
NB: I’m not Kitechaser/never heard the CL2, in case u might think otherwise, his hearing is likely more opinionated/superior to mine<3 decades younger.
I asked Alan @AVsource, said LCD4s/4z had less lower end bass punch compared to the LCD24s<which he preferred, fwiw. Said Mr Speakers estat ‘Voce’ had more accurate/faster bass than the 24s.
Last point, as with most reviewers online, huge pet peeve for me is constant failure to be more specific/detailed on source tracks, if you mention a particular artist, name the track, if you mention a specific instrument(s)/type, name the time point in a particular track. Jesus almighty, you think I’m 20yrs old with oodles of time for the next 10yrs to track down all your claims…I’ve probably got a decade or 2 max(of which the last, I won’t be able to hear very well at all)…I’m impatient now, be specific!!! 1.5yrs and headfonic’s review of Mr Speakers estat ‘Voce’ with Marcus’ single track mention & I had to spend 10+minutes tracking down his imaginary track in the “Bass” section of the review because he’s a Game of Thrones/Dead Man walking fan? Arrgh, the track in question, certainly better than the constant pr0n style background music of Prodigy(Linus, got a specific track that illustrates your point, even though they sound very much alike, none of which I want to listen to on any sound reproduction system?)…is in fact> Dawn Of The Dead 1978/2004<nope, brainfart!>
Into the Abyss-Dance With the Dead
Track: Mask
Electronic
2014
Which does sound decent enough for me to listen to…except, you call that sub-bass? Sounds like it’s all 50hz or higher.
thx to Marcus, you have better taste in music than those bizarre Brits Darko & Linus. From Spotify free, more of Dance with the Dead, this is good club music. Try album ‘Near Dark’ tracks Andromeda, there is what I call rumble at the start, but it’s not good enough ;p. Go see the basshead definition thread for that.
Continue to Eye of the Storm, Near Dark is excellent except all of these I have to turn volume down to ~60-75%, getting what I think is called harmonic distortion, those tiny cheapo drivers are overloaded w/’technical’ too fast/changing sub-bass on Near Dark. Dropped volume, sounds ‘dope’, lol But I can’t listen too long, these tracks start sounding too similar with that same sounding deep bass beat.
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This may help someone like me looking for an inexpensive 3.5mm cable for the LCD i3.
Last week I email Audeze costumer service about it and the guy was really helpful with the information about it. I’ll post his answer here and I already ordered one from Amazon at $19 that are arriving today. As soon as I get to try them, I’ll post the link here, don’t wanna suggest anything I don’t if work.
Hi Hansel
Thanks for the inquiry. While the LCDi3’s two-pin connectors aren’t proprietary and many standard/aftermarket connectors will work, we did throw in a small twist that’s important to note:
You’ll notice a groove on the connector of the cable (under the L and R on the iSINE cable), and a corresponding tab inside the headphone connector. This is to ensure correct polarity. When using any aftermarket connector/cable, it’s important to make sure the connector fits within this tab so it doesn’t damage the connector inside the headphones, as this would not be covered by warranty. The recommended dimensions for connectors without this groove is 2.6mm x 5mm, and the pins are .75mm in diameter, but .78mm will also work.
Here’s a diagram of the pin assignment as you look at the cable connectors with the lettering/groove facing you:
We hope this helps!
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I have these on the way, and am hoping to use them balanced with my Sony NW-zx300. Anyone have 10 band EQ settings recommendations to match the built in DSP with the cipher cable? I have an iPod touch I could use the cipher cable with, but would really love to use them with the zx300 too.
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Great review. Can you please share your EQ for cipher lightning and BT?