Are Audeze really that bad quality-wise?

That's a fun example of "To each his own". I've grown to hate my HE-400i as an HD650 replacement, and I'd took HD600, HD650 or any Audeze any day over them (well, if that Audeze will last long enough).

 

I didn't bring up HD650 purposely, there is way too much HD650 shilling as is and I happen to agree with the growd here about it's totl status. HD650 even stock is a strong league above HE-400i or regular through a reasonably resolving setup to me. I still recognise some strengths of the planar driver over HDxxx one.
With an EC MK2 I have hard time chosing b/w HD800 and HD650 for enjoyment.

 

In before ban: I tend to agree there is too much praise for HD650 while HD600 is faster and cleaner

But yeah, Audeze vs. HiFiMans seems to be a matter of preference—I still don't get how people prefer HFM over Audeze, but that's just me. Maybe it's a bandwagon of sorts (*ahem* IF WoF *ahem*).

 

Wait, I've got a question then. Or two.

Fazor vs. non-fazor has been covered hundreds of times, sure, can't comment since I've never heard unfazored, but I wanted to ask this for a while:

— Do I understand correctly from this pic http://cdn.innerfidelity.com/images/Audeze_LCDX_Diagram_Fazer.jpg that bass being stronger, punchier, more present, etc. in a non-fazor model was mostly an artifact of imposing soundwaves, and after Fazor kind of solved that, people started to dislike the sound because it became more netural?

Zero acoustics knowledge, so there.

And the important question,

— Are you guys really saying that Audeze has more driver failures than other planar magnetic companies—HiFiMan, for instance? I was under the impression the technology itself is not exactly ready for QA, a lot of drivers are failing. The thinner the diaphragm, the bigger the chance of fail, etc.? I'm pretty sure HiFiMan has a ton of failures as well, but I've assumed everybody cuts them slack because of lower prices and low expectations from a Chinese company.

 

Sennheiser is one of those huge, family-owned private German corporations with thousands of employees in multiple factories (Germany, Ireland, China). They're not some OCP conglomerate like the old AKG or Sony but they're ten times the size of Beyer and know the quality of their products. That's why you see random people asking if the HD 700 ridiculous discounted to 300 euros is worth it but no dealer can drop the 25, 558/598, 600/650, or 800 below certain price points. Amazon has the "Buy an HD 600 for 400 bucks and we'll throw in a free DT 770!" thing Adorama does occasionally now as they can't sell the HD 600 for much below that and probably want to clear DT 770s that aren't moving from inventory. Sennheiser should at least send purrin a sample for all the HD 650s he's moved though.

 

Thank god Sennheiser is not overly anal about their pricing/MSRPs, otherwise I wouldn't get a shiny new non-refurbished HD800 for $900 just today

 

Oh, they are super authorized. The key to getting that MSRP for an HD800 is to live in a country where the currency did sink 50% per year. Would totally recommend that for getting TOTL headphones. Would not recommend for any other activities.

P.S. oh, just for added fun and giggles. HD800 here goes for $900, while LCD-2 for $1400 to $1600 and LCD-3 for $2700.

 

I think when you finally get to hear Craig's "uber" LCD-2, you'll understand why some of us are screaming "product variations!" off the top of our lungs. Not to say the regular LCD-2s out there are that bad, but Craig's is just so much better!

One other factor to take into account, also, is source gear quality. Not a lot of people have access to uber TOTL DAC and amp, and most of them would tend to go with cheaper devices that don't tend to spotlight lower frequency problems as much (though they spotlight higher frequency problems a lot). Not to say that it's a fact but... I think I myself would have a hard time telling if an LCD-2 is grade A or grade C with most ~$500 rigs. Note, though, that to my ears at the time, Craig's LCD-2 was easily grade S.

So... at the end of it all, I think... it's simply that people don't notice that their LCD-2 is that bad, since they don't really have any "reference" for what a "good" LCD-2 should sound like.

This is not on them. I blame the industry for pushing bad gears on us.

 

Sennheiser is ironfisted about wholesale pricing and who actually gets to buy their stuff wholesale. It's 400 dollars per HD 650 now, volume be damned even for Amazon.com

Hifiman seems to discard a lot more drivers that fail internal quality control than Audeze does. Audeze seems to have more "If we ship it out, and it doesn't come back then it's good" QC.

As for speed/transient response, the Sennheiser dynamics really are amp-dependent and do scale. Sennheiser is not joking about "Lightweight aluminum voice coils ensure excellent transient response." Palm-muted, thrash metal tremolo picked 32nd and 64th notes actually end as they're muted by the palm on capable solid states amps and fast neutral tubes. Plug an HD 650 into a Soundblaster/Speedball Crack/Vali, crank the Megadeth or Sodom, and that's not happening. Out of O2 it will be a noticeably better. Out of something like a Magni to pro gear and beyond, those notes just end. When people think dynamic drivers are slow they are thinking of some M50 closed can crap out of mushy high impedance laptop headphone outs. Most planars will sound universally quick and clean but more one note. The Fazors not so much.

 

IMO, Audeze issues are not over exaggerated. I was genuinely surprised by LCD3F how un-resolving they were for 2k$ asking price. If some 250- 400$ USD headphone can beat it in most, if not all aspects, then what is there to argue about?(2 certain headphones come to mind..) Is it the consumers fault they don't have their quality control and technology under control..?!

To my ears Audeze does not have anything significant on the table compared to HE-6, HD800. Stock HD650 sounds better than LCD2 and LCD3F. LCD2 sounded better to me than LCD3F. But it is probably just that a man in a lab coat should tell me what's good and what's not.

(NB! Everything i said might be affected by the shape of my head, shape of my ears, the position of the stars, and/or my nontrivial-trivial agenda(s).)

 

Here's a question though? What exactly is the "average Audeze consumer" in this case? I mean, you can say that for phones and laptops and lower end DSLR cameras, but for $1K++ heavy, super niche audiophile headphones made by a company who you can't find a product of in a normal consumer outlet? The average Audeze consumer is the working Head-Fi member or audiophile or budding audiophile reading review sites and has some cash on hand to burn. That kind of average consumer will notice if shit goes wrong with his or her headphones. It isn't just one or two people talking about Audeze reliability. There are hundreds, and that's just the vocal fraction of consumers.

Very true. I heard that one of the reason the HEK is so expensive is because of the discard rate for usable drivers. Audeze QC is practically non-existent in my personal opinion, even for products that are repaired and sent out in warranty.

 

audeze is just totally out of touch, just look at the el-8s, not only do they sound bad but they expected people to wear a huge bulky and weird looking headphone on the go with their phone? so much of the marketing was how "stylish and light" it is and how it can be driven by any smartphone.

 

Minus the reliability case, it's like we are talking about the customers of that hipster headphone company from Brooklin, been in business forever, you know? I guess Audeze are trying to aim for the same customer.

However Audeze does seem to at least try to improve technically, but hits and misses like EL-8 can really hurt a small company (while, for instance, Sony does not care if most of their models sell bad or are failures, they'll just try again).

Well, you've heard it on forums somewhere between here, /r/ or Jude-Fi—as did I—so it only highlights that HiFiMan is great at PR and interacting with community (and this, they definitely are). Pretty sure Audeze does inspect every single driver as well—maybe with a lesser process, but we would not know. They just did not communicate that well enough.

 

The sad part is that it looks like they've focused all of their marketing activities around EL-8, it was meant to be a mainstream breakthrough. BMW design, all promo materials and web promos are centered around EL-8, Apple store presence (it's really really hard to get there, TBH), you name it. But I do think they've stumbled at a product/market fit, which is, unfortunately, the number one reason for startup failure—and Audeze is a startup!

If it's a lifestyle headphone and is meant to compete with Momentum, B&O, Beats and other good-looking headphones in a shiny Apple Store—why the hell price is 2x-3x of their competitors, weight is about the same as with LCD-2 and they are two times larger than Momentums?

If it is a studio/musician headphone (they try to promote EL-8 as it in their YouTube videos, etc.), why would a musician even care? A tracking headphone should be sealed and not cost a ton (surprise, most musicians are rather poor), and easily replaceable if lost. That's why Sony 6's are there forever—$100 a pair (probably less for big customers?) allows you buy them in dozens. That's why HD[2,3]80 and M-50 are still in the biz, despite being shitty headphones.

If it is an audiophile headphone, the sound is very, very questionable and it still costs two times more than a HiFiMan. And they still have LCD-2 available, so what's the deal? How is that a new direction if you're unsure yourself what is it about exactly?

I do have to agree with @purrin that HiFiMan's new lineup (400*, 560 and up, especially the -X) is quite brilliant compared to this and very clearly positioned; that saddens me.

 

Some reported/photographed quality issues i have read on HF about LCD3F. Fazor grill is not aligned to the driver magnetic array precisely. The pitch of the Fazor grill is not the same as the magnetic array=alignment problem. The pads had different thickness, few centimeters..