@Viperex76 I don’t have any planars so I can’t tell you which of those amps will drive them the best but I do have a couple of comments that may be helpful.
The Schiit Jot 2 and Asgard 3 are amps, so you would need to add a DAC, and that will bump up the cost. If you got one of these, the cheapest option would be to order a built in DAC card when you buy the amp. A more flexible option would be to get a separate DAC, which will be even more expensive. If you’re interested in tubes, the Schiit Lyr 3 could be added to your list too. All three of those Schiit amps are very good (and very good value for money) and one isn’t necessarily better than the others.
The Playmate 2 is an all-in-one DAC-amp but I just noticed that the standard unit comes with NE5532 opamps, whereas the rave reviews from me and other members were based on listening to Burson amps using V6 Vivid opamps, which would add another $200 to the price. I’ve never heard the NE5532, so I don’t know how different they are, but to give you an indication of how switching opamps can change the sound signature of a Burson amplifier, here is a really good comparison of some of Burson’s opamps. I’ll call on @Tom_Ato to give his advice, since he’s listened to all of Burson’s amps, and I’m wondering which opamps he was using in his Playmate 2.
As a general rule, planar headphones benefit from far more power than the minimum specs indicate. I used to own Audeze and HiFiMan planars, and still own a Dan Clark AEON Flow Closed (AFC). I’ve tried the AFC on everything from phones and tablets to all of my desktop amps.
The AFC has 13 ohm resistance (extremely low versus most headphones) and gets better and better with amps that deliver a lot of current. My best amps for it include the Schiit Lyr 3 and Rebel Audio RebelAmp. These two outclass everything else I own, in providing more details, staging, and dynamics. The AFC sounds awful on mobile sources, even though it plays “loud enough.” It has no details, no dynamics, and everything gets wadded up in a rough and muddy mass.
I recommend you search for @Resolve’s reviews of this specific Audeze model, as he’s careful and thorough in his testing. I won’t speculate about the potential for improvement, as specific planar models differ.
Yeah there are a few planars that really don’t require much power and are the exception. The LCD-X and XC are two of them. The Ananda and HEKse are the other two notable ones in that regard. You can drive them to sufficient volume from just about anything.
I will likely be in the minority here. I am no audio pro (or audiophile). I speak from relevant experience. I am on my fifth pair of Audezes. These headphones will run off of 100 mw or less. But try listening to them from an amp with 1w plus. It is not for volume but for dynamics, headroom and driver control. It is ALWAYS better to have a decent amount of headroom from your amp powering any driver, be it speakers or headphones whatever. Even if playing at relatively low volume levels when a extra low and long bass not plays in the music it uses way more power. So what happens if you are already nearly maxed out on your little iphone or whatever? Distortion. Compressed dynamics. Bad sounding music. Why spend $1k plus on world class headphones and then short them on power? Having said all that, any one of those amps will sound okay to good. But you don’t need to ask Audeze anything really as they have published specs AND power recommendations.
Overview of key specs. Minimum power requirement 100mw (Triple most smart phones)
Recommended power level 250 mw
Recommended amplifier power 1-4 watts
And somewhere in Audeze’s early specs for the LCD-XC the maximum power handling is 15 watts for like 5 milliseconds or something
Yes, these can be powered poorly from a low powered source, but listen to it for a few minutes (particularly with EQ) with 100 mw and then with 1w+ and you will hear the difference. Going from 100mw to 250mw makes almost no difference, but go from 250mw to 1w and you will begin to see what these LCD-XC are capable of. It is important to repeat, this is not about volume
@04gto Yea, I have XC connected to Sound blaster card. It is loud enough, I barely play on more then 80% of volume but something is missing here definitely. Also soundstage is missing and it is less clear (or placebo effect) I decided take both Burson Playmate 2 and Topping d30 pro + a30 pro then decide which one stay. Burson’s microphone input is tempting as a bonus.
Does anyone have the 2021 pad dimensions to hand? I recently got my 2020 LCD-XC (annoyingly purchased in 2021 but must have been old stock) upgraded to the new 2021 driver configuration and new pads but I swear the pads are exactly the same as before. I wouldn’t be mad, as Audeze did do the upgrade free of charge but as I’m in the UK I had to spend over £100 to ship them out. Might just be my imagination but they don’t really look like the new pads I’ve seen people post pictures of either.
Where did you get yours from out of curiosity? I’m also in the UK and bought mine about 2 months ago from Hifonix but unfortunately got a 2020 version. I asked to swap them for a 2021 model and was told that they didn’t have any. Fortunately, Audeze agreed to do the upgrade free of charge as long as I paid to ship them out to the States (cost over £100). Received them back a few weeks later but I’m not convinced anything has actually changed. Weight is 715g and the pads don’t look or feel any different. I suspect they may have forgotten to swap the pads but I can’t be sure.
First of all What is your lcd xc serial number?
I called hifonix before ordering with them and they confirmed they didnt have the latest revision.
So I then contacted sxpro and they confirmed they had the new revision.
I did receive the new revision from sxpro but if you read my previous posts it is only just within the new revision.
One of my cups had QC issues so I sent them back and 2/3 weeks later they sent me a replacement one that was one of the first of the new revision.
Mine weight in at around 685 approx.
Went you sent them back to audeze did they not confirm what they did? I would contact them and try and get written confirmation of what they actually replaced.
Magnets should have been replaced together with pads.
If your local I would be happy to you to come and try mine out to see if what the difference is.
I live in the south west of england.
Hello @Resolve , thank you for the shared graphs and the videos you made on theses headphones.
It got my interest and I would like to buy them as a closed-back alternative.
I have two questions please:
1 - can you please share the THD graph of the XC 2021 ( would like to anticipate the impact of eq on the bass in high volume)
2- can you please give your subjective opinion on the soundstage gap between these and something like the zmf VC ?
Again thank you for the clarity you’re bringing to headphones reviews !
I’m currently out of town so I’m not able to provide that data, but it can easily handle bass boost through EQ. Also, I do like to publish THD, but as Crin mentioned in a live stream we did, people far too frequently take THD to mean something it doesn’t - and that is evidenced by the way people react to it on other forums. THD is NOT an indicator of ‘technical performance’ in the subjective sense, and has been proven to not be predictive of sound quality preferences the way FR is. At the same time, for doing EQ, this is a meaningful data point that is absolutely valuable. So I do intend to provide that, just not always haha.
Thanks for your quick reply. Enjoy your time. Hopefully it is not too hot in there.
I am specifically interested in THD for eq purposes as you well noted.
(I watched the episode indeed).
Will be looking forward to the the thd graph whenever it’s possible for you to share it.
I do appreciate good bass and I listen quite loud to music, so hopefully the thd is not wild.
@Resolve ,
One last question please,
If you had to buy a sub 3000 usd headphones (following your preferences but without factoring weight), would you still pick the LCD-XC ?
I say that beceause you stated that the the lcd-xc play in the same league as something like the VC.
It seems only logical to save money for the same amount of sound quality, no ?
Are they any other planar open-backs, within that price range, that are notebly superior in your personal opinion ?
I follow all your podcasts and lives but I struggle to figure out any planar open-backs worthy of your praise. Arya = no punch. He100v2/se = too bright. Focals = not planars & small soundstage. Lcd-x = small centre image & lack of punch… Etc
I wish the susvara were sub 3k …
I feel that planars can’t be compared directly to dynamic driver headphones. The presentation is just so different. We tend to index for price a bit hard on this stuff when in reality it’s just various acoustic properties that resonate with some of us harder than those same properties resonate with others. For that reason, when you have such a difference going on, it’s not really an apples to apples comparison. If someone just handed me $3000 to buy a closed-back headphone, yeah I’d probably still go with a VC. But I generally have a hard time giving people purchase advice as it relates to price tags for precisely this reason - you may value different things - and at this level, the differences are not as straightforward as saying “A sounds better than B”.
But to your other question there, if I were buying an open-back planar, under $3k, I’d probably gravitate to an Arya. But I also like jazz and acoustic/classical. You may not.
Although the impedance is lower on the X and XC, there is no free lunch, and planar magnetics still like a lot of current drive. Everyone’s magnet arrays are a bit different, but I find this to be true in listening practice. The XCs I have do seem to like a powerful amp.
One of my working theories on this is that chasing low impedance and high sensitivity specs to bring planar magnetics’ amp requirements down may actually result in less than ideal voltage and current delivery. I don’t know enough about how the magnetic arrangements effects this to say if I’m barking up the right tree, but I’ve actually had some of the higher impedance, less damped planars (like LCD-4) sound amazingly dynamic on OTL tube amps. It’s only a single data point, but worth investigating more I think.
You bet. It is true.
The XC’s need a decent amount of current flow cause their 20 OHM Impedance is actually purely resistive because of the planar/magnetic array tech.
Not only is it a purely resistive load, the relatively low impedance makes greater demands of output devices compared to a higher impedance transducer, so one is less likely to get linearity from a wider variety of gainstages.
