Topic: Audeze LCD-2 mod (Read 4484 times)

Bill-p · « **on:** February 09, 2015, 12:05:22 AM »

Thanks to circumstances, I obtained an LCD-2 rev.2 (non-fazor), which... has actually been on my wish list for a long time. Except its stock sound was lacking just a bit of air for me to consider.

So when I got this sucker in, I immediately opened 'im up and tried various things. Here's what I've done thus far on the back side:

Artistic Wire copper shaped into rings and stuffed into here. I used the silver-coated gauge 10 copper. I used about 4 rings here. You probably can't see but there are 2 more rings under the 2 shown in the photograph:

Then shelf-liner, square-pattern... flat side facing outside:

Wireform metal mesh cut into circles... 3 of these (maximum I can fit in there):

Then the =O= pattern shelf-liner. This time flat side faces inside:

And the stock felt piece. Nothing special... but I guess it's good for filtering out dusts and stuffs. Plus it gives a bit of midrange fullness:

And... that's it for the internal damping. Front side? another 3 of those gauge 10 copper rings. Why? Cuz I'm crazy.

So you're probably going "WTF? Copper rings??" at this point. And hey, yeah, I may just be crazy, and I'm falling prey to expectation bias and such, but hey, it's worth a try, right?

Does this make the LCD-2 more Stax-like?

Who knows? I know it makes the LCD-2 more enjoyable to me. Maybe I just like that extra weight to the headphone. It's too light at stock!

Will take photos of the front side, and maybe do possible pad mod when I'm less lazy.

zerodeefex · « **Reply #1 on:** February 09, 2015, 12:12:56 AM »

Thanks for sharing! Would be awesome to get these in the hands of the pirates who have heard the better modded Audezes and the pairs that perform well stock (pre-fazor).

Bill-p · « **Reply #2 on:** February 09, 2015, 12:16:23 AM »

No problem, Ravi! I figured there are some who love the stock Audeze sound, and are probably wishing for the same thing I did: more air.

Frequency response is still about the same for me (verified via measurements using my phone), so all this really does is make the LCD-2 more airy. It's still a dark-ish headphone overall, so still smooth, slightly relaxed, and with great bass.

Will be interesting when tried on an LCD-3. I think the LCD-3 will get a lot closer to Stax-like performance.

zerodeefex · « **Reply #3 on:** February 09, 2015, 12:23:41 AM »

You should reach out to Ultrabike to ask him about his portable measurement rig and how he compensates. It might be cool for you to have something to take with you when you travel if you find yourself modding and tweaking.

Bill-p · « **Reply #4 on:** February 09, 2015, 12:45:50 AM »

Hm... good idea. I don't anticipate doing that any time soon, or even when I'm in Vietnam, but I'd love to have a measurement rig of my own to properly see how things are heard by the microphones. My ears aren't the most reliably after all.

JoelT · « **Reply #5 on:** February 09, 2015, 03:26:28 AM »

Thanks for sharing this Bill. I was doing something sort of similar when I had an LCD-2 (kinda miss that headphone actually). I used layers of fabric from CD storage sleeves though instead of metal mesh, along with shelf liner.

Could you describe what the metal mesh does? I don't recall seeing it used before.

Bill-p · « **Reply #6 on:** February 09, 2015, 03:41:59 AM »

Funny enough, if used as back damping, it gives a bit of a boost to 4-4.5KHz. This is universal across all headphones I have tried this on.

JoelT · « **Reply #7 on:** February 09, 2015, 03:49:06 AM »

Ha! Thanks.

I would add (in case someone has the newest rev.) that the newer fazored version has different stock damping, as they use a single thick foam insert now rather than the pieces of felt shown here. The fazor protrudes from the driver though, so I think you actually have a bit more room to layer material in the older version.

Bill-p · « **Reply #8 on:** February 09, 2015, 03:51:01 AM »

Yeah, and I'd like that, obviously.

Side note: made some revisions to improve soundstage width and edge imaging. Will post extra photos and stuffs soon.

Side note 2: whoops! I wasn't supposed to divulge any sound impressions because it'd give expectation bias!

JoelT · « **Reply #9 on:** February 09, 2015, 03:56:05 AM »

^Hopefully you're driving them with an O2/ODAC, so we can actually put some stock in these subjective impressions of yours.

Author Topic: Audeze LCD-2 mod (Read 4484 times)

Bill-p

Audeze LCD-2 mod

zerodeefex

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

Bill-p

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

zerodeefex

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

Bill-p

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

JoelT

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

Bill-p

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

JoelT

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

Bill-p

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

JoelT

Re: Audeze LCD-2 mod

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Author Topic: Audeze LCD-2 mod (Read 4484 times)