Audeze LCD-X Open-Back Planar Headphone - Official Thread

I eat all the steaks all the time!!! oh wait…wrong stake :wink:

I also have had probably the best experience so far in audio purchases from Headphones.com. The brothers of Lissimore have been excellent and very communicative. Plus you have this forum for any questions as an open source group knowledge pool =) not to be confused with a Dead Pool, those aren’t as fun :wink:

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awesome thanks for the info…

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I purchased these back in February and I absolutely love the sound of these headphones. Very clean, articulate, and not harsh. Very enjoyable.
They are indeed heavy, but not uncomfortable. I can wear them for several hours before I experience any discomfort, which is usually due to heat from the ear pads (Not complaining about the pads. They’re super plush lamb skin, it’s jut the inevitable heat from them being stuck to your head for an extended period of time).

I’ll be content with these for a while. I’ll definitely be upgrading other components in my audio chain before considering a replacement for these.

I’m new to the headphone community, but here’s a quick impression of the Rupert Neve RNHP used with the LCD-X. (Hope it’s okay that I linked to another forum)

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Welcome, and lovely photos!

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Thank you! This forum seems really friendly. I think is will be my ‘go-to’ forum regarding audio.

Welcome @ValentineLuke!!

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Thank you!

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Hey… I recognize that name lol, welcome!

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Haha! Thanks. People seem a bit friendlier here. Truth be told, your review that linked to this sight brought me over. The boards seemed to address more of the products that I’m interested in so it made sense.

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Cool beans! Glad I could bring it to your attention!

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Hello and welcome @ValentineLuke. It’s a super friendly place. I am sure you’ll enjoy yourself.

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Just thought I’d bump this thread with my recent written review of it:

I’ll have a video out shortly as well. This is the ‘2020 revision’, which added the mesh material behind the grille. It was a different unit than the one @Max_Settings reviewed, and had a nicer FR. But I still think it requires Reveal+ or EQ. Measurements may come in the future for it, but at the moment this headphone doesn’t work with the EARS rig - I’ve never seen anything as inaccurate as the way it measures on it.

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Awesome man! Thank you. I love the XC, so I’d be real curious to what you think of the open back version of my favourite closed back headphone in hifi.

Hope you do this for the XC as well. I know you hate the weight though. Lol. :slight_smile:

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Yeah the weight is a killer for the closed-backs haha. I am really enjoying the LCD-X with the Roon Reveal preset at the moment. If you get a chance to do that with your XC, give it a shot.

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Yeah I am hearing some nice success stories with plug in softwares, like Roon Reveal. I really haven’t done much assistances or enhancements with computer based audio.
I’m so old school. I love using a high quality DACS to pair with a solid CD transport like a CYRUS CD i.
I’ll give it a try sometime. :slight_smile:

Out of curiosity do you like any of the Audeze official presets with any of the headphones or do you feel your own EQ band customization is best?
Thanks Andrew.

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Yeah I find the Reveal+ presets to be great actually. They get the tonality to be much closer to my preference, so I don’t really need to do any EQ with them. Saves me some time haha. From what I understand, the main point of Reveal in general is for music creators, giving people the ability to simulate different rooms and whatnot, but for the specific Reveal+ preset that’s available in Roon (and the VST plugin for EQ software) I think they’re really effective for us audiophiles as well.

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Thanks for this review, in particular for mentioning the Audeze equalization settings in Roon. Somehow I was unaware of this until now. I’ve been listening to my LCD-X with these settings this afternoon and it sounds pretty sweet, definitely a noticeably different sound signature. I also quite like the raw unequalized sound, probably because that’s the way I’ve been listening for the past ~year since I bought the headphones. Cool to have another, canonical option that doesn’t involve me fiddling manually with EQ.

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Just thought I’d post the raw measurement of the LCD-X I have here at the moment.

Note that this is for the LCD-X with the mesh behind the grille (what some have called the 2020 version). For older versions this EQ profile may not be applicable, and if there are any changes in the future then this also won’t be applicable.


This is relative to the 2013 Harman target, so that upper midrange dip shows up quite strongly here. I’m less bothered by that treble extension, I think the target rolls off a bit. But in general, to my ear this is a somewhat muted and muffled kind of sound. I think ‘non-fatiguing’ might be a nicer way to describe this but at the same time it’s got some treble zing too above the upper midrange. It’s funny, I’m starting to find upper mids such a challenge to get right. Too much and things sound shrill, shouty, and nasally, too little and things sound muffled and muted.

Here’s my preliminary ‘conservative’ EQ profile for it to get it closer to my preference. Interestingly when I EQ’d to closely match the target I found it had too much presence around 3-4khz, so I dialed it back a bit. The 9.5khz bump is optional I think, but I do hear it as slightly more balanced with it in there. I’ll likely still have to tinker with it a bit to be sure:


And here’s how the measurement looks after EQ:

I think you could go more fine-grained than this but fixing the 4khz region a bit better and maybe getting the balance around 12khz better but to my ear this is a good starting point.

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That’s almost night and day. :flushed:

I wonder what the Reveal plug-in looks like?

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I’ll do a measurement of that. I can only use the one that’s for EQ APO to do this because Roon’s only works in Roon. But I think they’re the same.

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