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MULTIMEDIA

Audeze LCD-2 Headphones At Music Direct (Part 2)

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5/11/2013 11:16:37 AM

Conveying the message?

There’s a natural temptation when listening to a review product to choose items of music with which you are long familiar. But I find that useful insights are often obtained by listening to something new particularly, in my case, if it’s a piece of classical music that is outside the mainstream and might be labeled as ‘difficult’. The key question is: do I ‘get’ the music from the outset or does something about the system sound quality make it harder going?

Planar magnetic (isodynamic) drivers incorporate 12 neodymium magnets per capsule, disposed to either side of a thin plastic diaphragm with a flat ‘voice coil’

Planar magnetic (isodynamic) drivers incorporate 12 neodymium magnets per capsule, disposed to either side of a thin plastic diaphragm with a flat ‘voice coil’

So I included a recent acquisition on my LCD-2 playlist: the first movement of Walter Piston’s String Quarter No 1, ripped from the stereo area of BIS-SACD-1264 and converted to a 24-bit/88.2 kHz WAV file using Korg AudioGate. This is a fairly dense piece of chamber music, the rhythmical pulse of which is as important as the melodic line. As a result, it benefits from an incisive sound quality and doesn’t fare so well if instrumental attack is softened. With its smooth, polite sound quality the LCD-2 didn’t quite connect me to this piece.

Harking back

For many British audiophiles, ‘isodynamic’ conjures up memories of a that very modern-looking headphone introduced by Wharfedale in 1972 and recipient of a Design Council Award the following year. Lauded as a breakthrough that combined the thin planar diaphragm of an electrostatic driver with the simplicity and ruggedness of the ubiquitous moving-coil alternative, Wharfedale’s Isodynamic, designed by a team lead by John Collinson, was actually not quite the novelty it seemed. In fact the essential elements of the isodynamic drive unit had been described in a patent application filed by two Israeli inventors in 1958 and granted in 1961. This was the era of Rank Organization ownership of historic names in British hi-fi, and a badge-engineered version of the Isodynamic subsequently appeared as the Leak 3000. But it was dull-looking by comparison.

Persuasive material

Another instance in which crisp sound quality pays dividends is when listening to old rock recordings, which too often are as turbid as the Thames under Waterloo Bridge. A good example is ‘Roundabout’ from Yes’s Fragile album (Elektra R9 78249), which, after Steve Howe’s short guitar intro and the reversed piano, becomes very compressed as soon as the rest of the band join in. Here you need a headphone with a fully developed presence band, so the LCD-2 wasn’t able to shine a light into its darker corners.

Standard cable is fitted with a ¼ in jack but balanced XLR – terminated versions are also available

Standard cable is fitted with a ¼ in jack but balanced XLR – terminated versions are also available

No, where the LCD-2 was at its most persuasive, for me, was on pristine modern recordings made in natural acoustics where the music isn’t too demanding of resolving power. Emma Kirkby, for instance, singing Robert Johnson’s touching ‘Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies’ (a 24-bit/88.2 kHz conversion from BIS-SACD-1505) was convincingly rendered without sibilant excess, in the large space of Lanna Church in Sweden. And the classy jazz that is ‘I Had The Craziest Dream’, from Jimmy Cobb’s In The Key Of Blue (24/96 download from HDtracks), was naturally balanced, generously dimensioned and resolutely resisting spottiness in the trumpet sound.

The verdict

The LCD-2 may be a trendsetter and if so we will be seeing high-end isodynamic headphones from other sources in the near future. The polar opposite of marques that over-emphasis the presence band to add ‘detail’, Audeze’s sound will appeal most to listeners who prefer a slightly reserved presentation but can’t stomach the lower-midrange and bass excesses that blight so many modern ’phones.

Sound quality: 7.8/10

Lab report

Audeze LCD-2

Audeze claims 91dB for 1mW sensitivity for the LCD-2, equivalent to 103.2dB for 1V at the specified impedance of 60ohm. In practice we measured 106.0dB at 1 kHz for 1V input, averaged for the two capsules, which suggests that Audeze’s specification is actually rather conservative here. Although isodynamic headphones have acquired a reputation for being difficult to drive in this respect, note that this sensitivity is actually higher than that achieved by some high-impedance moving-coil designs and will cause no bother to any headphone amplifier worthy of the name.

It is a characteristic of isodynamic drivers that they have an almost entirely resistive impedance, and so it is with the LCD-2. We measured a minimum and maximum modulus of 58.5ohm and 58.9ohm respectively, 20Hz-20kHz, a mere 0.4ohm variation over the audible frequency range. This means, to all intents and purposes, that the frequency response of the LCD-2 will be largely unaffected by the output impedance of the headphone amplifier used to drive it. A capsule matching error of 7.0dB, 40Hz to 10 kHz, is not unusually high for a headphone and mostly reflects narrow-band disparities above 1 kHz or so, and which will not be especially audible.

Very flat frequency response will be retained with most headphone amplifiers thanks to the unchanging, resistive load impedance

Very flat frequency response will be retained with most headphone amplifiers thanks to the unchanging, resistive load impedance

Sensitivity of the two capsules at 1 kHz was matched to within 0.2dB, justifying Audeze’s claim of tight production control – the remainder of the matching error is due to integration with the artificial ear. Diffuse-filed correction of the frequency response suggests that the perceived tonal balance will lack presence band energy but see the main review text for more on this topic. Bass response is virtually flat to below 20Hz and total harmonic distortion is vanishingly low at 90dB SPL at both 100Hz and 1 kHz.

Third-octave freq. resp. (red + uncorrected; cyan + FF corrected; green + DF corrected)

Third-octave freq. resp. (red + uncorrected; cyan + FF corrected; green + DF corrected)

Specifications

§  Sensitivity (SPL at 1 kHz for 1Vrms input): 106.0dB

§  Impedance modulus min/max (20Hz-20 kHz): 58.5 ohm @ 6.9 kHz – 58.9ohm @ 4.6 kHz

§  Capsule matching (40Hz-10 kHz): 7.0dB

§  LF extension (-6dB ref. 200Hz) : <20Hz

§  Distortion 100 Hz/1 kHz (for 90dB SPL): <0.01% / <0.02%

§  Weight (inc cable and 0.25in connector): 600g

 

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