AUDEZE LCD-4 Reference Open Circumaural Headphone

2017-04-14T09:30:31

There was no box to check for "Addict" to describe myself for this review, so I just went with "Hobbyist". I've auditioned and/or own many of the TOTL headphones. I already had the Sennheiser HD800's, Beyerdynamic T1's, Hifiman HE1000 V2's & Fostex TH900's prior to purchasing the LCD-4's. The HE1000 V2's were always my favorite all around cans prior to this purchase. My setup is an Auralic Vega DAC/Auralic Taurus MKII amp + the iFi Pro iCAN amp. The Vega operates as the DAC for both amps, as it has multiple connection options. There's a few things I'd like to mention prior to giving my opinion. I bought this amp on sale by itself from Adorama for $1299 prior to even seeing this combo. I found a link on Head-fi (in the iFi Pro iCAN section) for a special bundle of the LCD-4's + iFi for the same price as the LCD-4's alone. I immediately called up Adorama who verified the link and confirmed I had already purchased the amp. Adorama immediately gave me a $1299 discount on the LCD-4's, which brought my purchase price down to $2696. I'll be shopping there first for my future electronic goodies needless to say. Thanks Adorama! Ok...on to the LCD-4's. I burned the LCD-4's in for 75 hours at a relatively high volume level prior to auditioning. After that I did an A/B using both the Taurus MKII & Pro iCAN with the LCD-4's (I prefer the Pro iCAN by quite a margin over the Taurus MKII BTW). The iCAN was set to tube mode with a 10hz bump to 3D bass, for no other reason other than that's my listening preference. I used Foobar2000 set with a flat EQ. Wow...these babies are smooth. It didn't take too long to realize I had a new favorite set of cans. The LCD-4's sound incredible with every music genre IMHO with huge amounts of detail. I always use the Avicii "True" album for my "harsh treble" tests, since the first two songs on that album tend to hurt the ears a bit at times throughout both songs. I've always EQ'd the treble down a bit on all other headphones I tested those two songs with, because it was just to much for the ears at high volume levels. Not so with the LCD-4's. Even the treble sounded enjoyable and detailed on those tracks. To my ears, the LCD-4's are the most enjoyable set of headphones I've ever listened to, being slightly favored even over the HE-1000 V2's. I tried them with rock, classical, electronica, 70's music, etc, and they faired incredibly well each and every time. One of the first headphones I sold off were the Audeze LCD-2's (Fazor version). They were great all arounders as well, but didn't come close to the HE-1000's at the time they were compared head to head. That's not going to happen with the LCD-4's....they're here to stay in my inventory forever.

DAN S.