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Even the noise that sneaks through gives you an indication of this, and I think that it’s only possible for that to be the most jarring part of the transition because of how flat these headphones are over the full human hearing range. You can also loosen the headphone (via adjustable yoke) a little more than usual, reducing the clamp. Patent-pending Fazor elements guide and manage the flow of sound for improved frequency extension and balanced soundstage. However, they simply hug your head and are more pleasing to the touch, while the D8000 Pro has a higher clamping force and their earpads are nowhere as comfy and plush as the ones in LCD-X.
Fostex also developed an analogous microphone technology, employed in their ‘printed ribbon’ mics from the late ’70s and early ’80s. The XTC-O feels a little more ‘full’ sounding than the LCD-X, likely due to the increased low end and smaller soundstage. It has a fairly neutral lower-midrange, except for a very tiny bump around 800Hz, better ear gain than the previous version but one that is still south of neutral, and very well balanced treble tuning which is fairly neutral in lower-treble but excitingly sparkly and airy up top. The LCD-X’s were stunning in presenting the range and sonic transparency of what we needed to hear for confidence we were on the right track. First things first though – the D8000 Pro is better at detail retrieval, it has even better imaging and the overall quality is higher, but you definitely could expect that.
It majorly results in instruments not sounding as forward and instruments like guitars lacking a bit of bite and crunch. It’s an Audeze headphone at the end of the day, so you’d be expecting a great bass response…and you’ll definitely get it here. It’s very easy to distinguish sources panned only a few degrees apart, yet there is none of the artificial width you get in some high-end dynamic headphones. The planar magnetic driver is a native dipole — the loudspeaker equivalent of a figure-of-8 mic — which moves equal amounts of air on either side. We don’t yet have a recommendation list here at Ear Fidelity, but if we did, the LCD-X 2021 would have been one of the easiest headphones to put on it.
Their proprietary technology eliminates the breakup modes found in other designs and improves focus and clarity.The sophisticated planar magnetic drivers achieve high efficiency with low impedance, such that LCD-X can deliver great sound from nearly any device with a headphone output. EQing in a bit of that range does make it sound even better, but it's completely fine without EQ too. That dip in the upper mids, that ‘Audeze house sound’, results in vocals having amazing body and timbre without sounding tinny. They were useful well after I had finished a mix to my satisfaction on monitor speakers, or when I would later hear the mastered version.
In short, though, the Audeze LCD-Xs are the best headphones I have ever heard, and not by a small margin. It is much more universal, has better technicalities, and what’s the most important – it’s way cheaper. The suspension style headband is one of the best changes Audeze has ever implemented in their products, as it distributes the weight of the headphones much better than the original one. For me, Audeze headphones have always had an eye catching high end boutique design and are built link tanks, with LCD-X 2021 being no different!The HEDD tends to have a little bit more body in the upper-midrange section, so if you’re a fan of those shiny, forward-sounding female vocals, that could be your deciding factor. Now if Audeze somehow manage to reduce LCD-X's weight by a couple of 100 grams, it will be a big time win for them! You can absolutely crank the level on your headphone amp and, provided the amp itself is up to the mark, all you get is a deeper and more engaging listening experience.
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