I just got the LSA HP-2 Ultra and I’ve had a chance now to get acquainted with it. My initial reaction was WOW! - they have many of the qualities Murdock raved about in his video review. Very excellent overall clarity especially in the midrange and treble, not slightly rolled off and with transients blunted like with the Verite Closed. Even faster than the HD800S, and the HP-2 mercifully lacks the telltale plasticy coloration of the HD800S that annoyingly pervades its sound especially when making direct comparison with headphones lacking it
The overall comparison is complicated however, with a lot of tradeoffs.
The HP-2 is not up to the fantastic level of clarity, resolution and holographic imaging of the HE1000se, but at least it is in the neighborhood.
But the differences are more subtle than that - the HP-2 has the great virtue of lacking the persistent annoying overemphasized HF graininess and “edge” that the HiFiMan has along with its fantastic resolution. The HP-2 sounds much more natural in instrumental timbres especially in the mid and upper treble. Just much more “real” sounding, especially with instruments like the violin and guitar. Vocals are amazing. And this is compared with a headphone more than 4 times the price.
The major deficit with the HP-2 is the soundstage and overall holographic imaging capability. It is very noticeably reduced in soundstage width and depth with respect to the HE1000se; that aspect of trying to achieve the “you are there” or “they are here” illusion is lessened with the HP-2. But this is I think somewhat more than compensated for by the HP-2’s much superior instrumental timbres especially with its grain-free very high resolution treble range.
And dynamics and bass quality are also superb.
I think that at this point I will be inclined to listen more with the HP-2 rather than with my HEKse, Verite Closed or HD800S, which are of course way over the HP-2’s price class.
I need to explain that the conclusions of all these comparisons were mostly after I had “tweaked” the HP-2 significantly by damping a very annoying microphonics problem with its spring steel headband. It rings a lot (a sort of “bong” sound) with any contact, but more importantly, I discovered that it very significantly degrades the HP-2’s sound during playback because the microphonic metallic ringing is excited in a not too subtle way by the sound vibrations being emitted by the drivers themselves. The overall effect of the headband ringing is to subtly cloud over the sound with a low-level metallic grunge of some sort. The headphones sound really excellent even with this problem, but I found that the sound got much better just by reaching up and holding the headband with my hand, thereby damping out the vibrations.
To try to fix this, I experimented with a couple of kinds of flexible adhesive-backed damping sheets I had on hand, and found one that very significantly improves the HP-2’s sound. It’s a thin Isodamp product sold by Michael Percy. I cut these in the form of narrow strips and stuck them down on the black steel headbands (there are two, side by side). They can be easily removed if necessary.
The other tweak was finding the right headphone cable. The stock cable packed with the HP-2 was good but not great and significantly limited the HP-2’s performance. The HP-2 uses the same 3.5mm headphone plug used by HiFiMan so I already had two alternate candidates to try - an OCC copper Litz design and a Corpse Cable Gravedigger Cardas copper Litz cable. The Gravedigger turned out to be superb with the HP-2 and that’s what I’m using presently.
Comfort is OK not super great, but certainly good enough for me to enjoy the headphones.
Anyway, this is my progress report so far. I definitely don’t regret getting the HP-2.
