Donāt realy get how you can say the only thing successful is yhe optics without having heard it tbh
You know, I was going to joke around and say if anyone wants to offer me 10k ill just ship em now, but not that Iāve listened I think I may need to reconsider. These are very very solid off of initial impressions (aka 15 songs). Never heard sus or 1266 but detail it similar to utopia is my gut check. We will see how opinions evolve over the next while.
Come general aesthetic comments. The grills are prettier than the cup surrounds. Reminds me of an old linnen loom made with brass due to the right hand twill weave. Also, the fazors are massive. Like holy crap. They donāt touch my ears but this will 1,000% be an issue for some
A couple of small cosmetic things. A blip in the powder coating i couldnāt possibly care about, but the knob on the amp still has the spru remnant which is kind of annoying tbh. Its not much effort to check the knows and blip em with a sander yo get rid of that. I couldnāt possibly see a dent from over sanding with where it is, but I can absalutely see the spru.
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Sweet!! Whatās on the flash drive?
Not a clue. Havent plugged it in yet
Would not shock me if its their Reveal+ EQ software with a LCD-R preset. But very curious to see what you find out.
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Hm. We will see. Tbh the fr sounds solid at least
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Congrats bro.
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Man, now Iām hype for my pair. I havenāt gotten tracking yet, how has yours already arrived!
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I live like 7 miles from audeze and ordered before even currawongs review dropped
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Not fair! If you live that close you should at least be required to walk for pickup 
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Disclaimer: I am not a reviewer with extensive TOTL experience (had utopia shortly, but diana v2 is the next higher can Iāve owned) and am almost exclusively portable further hampering the stuff I do have (though I have a plethora of totl portable sources and several portable amps that well outperform the GSX-mini i owned previously). On top of that, as much as I try not to be biased, these are $2.5k (may actualy be a negative?) and extremely fucking pretty. Iām sure thats biasing me some how. Now onto my thoughts.
Thoughts:
Got about 7 hours of listening in today. Its amazing how fast you get use to new SQ gains. It was about an hour before I could concentrate on my work and about 1 more before it sounded completely normal. My listening today was mostly weeby edm (porter Robinson radio on roon) in the morning finished off with some relaxing bosa nova style jazz after lunch (last about hour and a half of my day) out of a hugo 2 rca ā jot a.
I am currently fully convinced this is the highest-fi experience I have had. Seperation and layering are amazing. The imaging could be better (far shaper image on utopia) but it never once felt smeared at all and movement was well tracked. The instrument texture was on the level of diana V2 and the raw resolution is distinctly a step higher. Iād love to comapire the resolution to utopia but tbh its just been too long since Iāve listened to them so I dont have a high confidence in my feeling.
All that is great, but what realy stands out to me is the timbre. It truly is exceptional at strings and drums. Indont trust my ears on vocal timbre so I wonāt comment on the naturalness there, but violin, guitar (acoustic and electric), bass (upright and electric), banjo (if yall have any electric banjo let me know), and drums are truly amazing. The only thing I have heard that had a similar level of realism here is the raal on an mha150 (severly underpowered).
My only real complaint here so far is bass slam/impact. I dont want anyone to take this like the LCD-R doesnāt have bass. It absalutely does. The extension is realy damn solid, the presence is excelent, the texture/control is easily on par with diana v2, and the bass presentation is extremely reminiscent of LCD-X. I just listen at an average of 55-60 dB SPL (yes, I did type that right) and want to feel like I have a bazooka tube lodged in my colon. The LCD-R does not deliver there bass boost on or off (doesnāt change slam at all, just presence). That said, the only cans Iāve ever had that do hit hard enough where I like to listen are t50 mk3 argons and Iām fairly certain thatās just because I could use them higher in volume from a non-existant trebble extension. I have some vauge hope susvara would make that happen, but over all Iām actualy very very satisfied now.
I was actualy gearing up to buy myself a holo may, Rivera AIC-10 and susvara some time in the next month or so. These legitimately have me rethinking that plan. I expect that chain to be better than this one, but Iām just not sure I care. We will see how the feeling develops over the next several weeks, but as of right this second, I want to buy more audio gear to play, not because Iām unsatisfied like I have been since I started my journey. Honestly, its a bit of a wierd feeling. Its safe to say though that I enjoy these quite a bit.
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Did the warm Filter on the Hugo2 make any noticeable difference ? If not Iām making the assumption that a Holo-May would not give you any more bass āslamā. Of course this is just speculation. It is rumored that the DAC with bass slam is the BiFrost2. Goldensound talked about the Bifrost a fair amount on one of his videos. Another thing Iād love to play with is cables and perceived bass slam. I know many people donāt think cables make a real world difference but I wish I had a pair of Silver cables that could deliver a lot of current very fast so I could hear for myself. I purchased a Lokius along with this LCD-R so I could play with the sound so I can Tweak it if needed without software. Sounds like you are having fun , congratulations on your new headphones. The anticipation is killing me I canāt wait for mine to arrive.
I actualy havent played with filters yet. Thats a good call. As for filters increasing slam though, tbh, Iāve never had them effect that. The clarity and defenition of the impact? Sure, but not the physical impact its self. In my experience thatās more often jusy to do with power or deliver type.
That said, currawong responded to me on headfi and said the slam really increases with more power. Iām fairly inclined to believe that since I can feel it wanting to slam and just not quite getting there. Debating trying an HSA-1B for these tbh
I think this may be a misunderstanding of what exactly a slammy dac experience entails. My experience is that instead of increasing max physicality, it just makes notes that shouldnāt slam (on other gear at least) do so. I will say that increasing sharpness and clarity of that impact and absalutely make it feel greater, but you have to already have some solid slam in the first place
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Mostly accurate here. The warm filter on the Hugo 2 shifts the focus of the FR down a bit and rolls off the highs. It also reduces the amount of upampling before the DAC portion does DAC things. To my ear itās a more pleasing sound but not as resolving. It doesnāt do much for bass impact/slam either.
Yeahā¦it was a bit confusing when he gave the most glowing comments powering the LCD-R off the Audio G-d more than the Jot-A. Since the R and A are sold together it makes me think that the less impactful sound was the actual goal.
For some DACs this might be true. I think the BF2 actually is just a more dynamic DAC across the board than many other DACs. Schiit products in general tend to come with more dynamic punch than a lot of their competitors. I think the issue youāll have more with the BF2 is that it doesnāt have the level of resolution to which you are now accustomed. Itās a fun, punchy, smooth, engaging DAC, but itās not particularly resolving, at least not nearly as resolving as some of the DACs youāve been using. I think youāll miss that most, TBH.
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Your experience mirrors my own with my Hugo2. Good to know my ears arenāt as bad as I thought. For me the the orange filter smooths things a bit and reduces the room reflections. The Red smooths and reduces the room reflections even more than the orange. The Green does not smooth anything but just reduces room reflections. The white filter does not smooth anything and has the most room reflections. I mostly use the orange and the white. Strangely I feel there is more bass āSlamā with the crossfeed on red on most headphones. ( Iām so looking forward to my LCD-Rs . I am sure the FedEx Tracking website will be relieved when I receive them. I keep compulsively checking the tracking every few hours to see if anything has changed.)
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Wow a RAAL HSA-1B just for the LCD-R seems overkill so yeah Iām totally curious. If you try one let us know that sounds awesome.
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Just hear back from audeze about the pinout.
Here is my question:
I would like to get an after market cable for these that is a better length for my use case. Given these are fairly high sensitivity and super low impedence, are there any specific cable specs that need go be met (impedence, capacitance, etc) to avoid SQ degradation or trebble roll off?
Here is the reply
LCD-R cable is of specific design that doesnāt match any other cable on the market in order to eliminate the possibility of using it with a different amplifier. Non-standard 4 pin female XLR connector is chosen for that reason because Shiit amplifier is the only one having male connector on output. If you need longer cable, the easiest option would be to make an extension of desired length. We use OCC copper so any extension made with OCC copper would do. If you want to make cable on your own keep in mind that pinout on 4 pins female XLR connector is as follows:
Pin1 - R+
Pin2 - R-
Pin3 - L-
Pin4 - L+
On mini XLR connectors that are connected to the cups pins 1-4 are positive and pins 2-3 are negative L or R depending on which side they connect to.
So no shorting worry I donāt think, but phase needs to be corrected on one cup and channels swapped for standard XLR.
For HSA-1B the left cup need polarity changed but that should be it. conflicting reports on hsa-1b pinout
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Could you just use any 4 pin XLR cable extender or do you want it without any interconnect in the middle?
I want a shorter cable that doesnt feel like shit
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You could ask Hart audio to see if he can create a custom one.
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