oh my you guys need to listen past bass frequencies, I can by no means tolerate Studios and Solos. They sound like listening through the cotton balls you put in your bleeding ears after listening to Skullcandy Lowriders. Honestly, there is very lackluster depth in the soundstage, no imaging, PRaT lags behind, sub-bass bleeds into the mids, and the treble manages to be grainy and muddled at the same time. Studios have *okay* noise isolation, but any closed-back headphone should (and does).
Yes please talon :-)
Bear.
|
Hm, okay. Here are some thoughts on the recommended LCD-2/LCD-3
Treble
I like my headphones to present a detailed top end with air and delicacy. This is evident in most all recordings. Live recordings sound just that, live. The acoustic space and pinpoint timing of a Jazz band is reflected in the percussion, ensuring a particularly intimate experience. Is it the most detailed ortho I have heard, no, some of my orthos are damped to *enhance the top end and moving from such an orthodynamic headphone to the LCD2, the initial reduction in top end energy is *noticeable but that feeling is soon replced by a sense of overall balance and enjoyment. I am sure there will be some who
would like a more pronounced top end, this is afterall a selfish hobby which promotes personal preferences but for me, these headphones offer a perfectly balanced sound.
*
Mids
The mids are what particularly stand out for me. They have a rich tonal balance with no loss or emphasis, sound "organic" yet are not boring. They have a richness of tone that very few headphones or speakers redropuce, without sounding "lush". *There is no hint of sibilance and will bring even the toughest logger to his knees if he hears xxx (insert favourite female vocalist here) Not many *headphones reproduce the lower mids well as many headphones have a low mid upper bass bump - this directly impacts on the baritone and can often paint a muddled picture in this department. I listened to an assortment of recordings which focus on the voice within an acoustic space, I wish I could share this experience with you. Just breathtaking and absolutely natural.
*
Bass
The downfall of so many great orthos - do you leave them slightly underdamped so that the bass throbs with a little less control than would be ideal or do you tighten it up so that the bass is several dB down but very tight and accurate. The LCD2 has no problem here - it just keeps going down. The acoustic bass of YoYoMa's cello on the Appalachian Waltz reverberates with multilayered bass that it transfixed me for the moment. I initially thought I heard some low bass warble but it turned out after much listening and reflection that I was hearing bass notes in the music which had never featured in my experience
of the music before. This was only on one particular electronica piece of music which I don't listen to ferquently but does extend the bass notes pretty low. Bach's Toccata's and Fugues sound vivid, Ulanji's bass drum virtuoso is thunderous and never did I feel the bass was congested or lacked definition. Thaebass is tight, punchy, fast and layered with all the texture of the mids.