Audeze LCD-X
Couldn't load pickup availability
Free Shipping On All Orders, No Minimums.
We offer free 2-day shipping on most products within the continental US.
Weekdays - Orders placed by 2pm EST ship same day. Orders placed after 2pm EST will ship the following business day.
Weekends - Orders placed on Saturday and Sunday will ship Monday.
Orders requiring motor freight delivery may take more than two business days. Once your order has shipped, you'll receive a shipping confirmation email with a tracking number for easy tracking.
Orders that contain items that are currently backordered, special order, or out of stock will ship complete once all items are in-stock unless otherwise requested.
If you need it faster, you will have the option of choosing a quicker shipping option when you checkout on the website.
At this time, we do not ship internationally and orders to Hawaii and Alaska may incur an additional shipping charge. Please contact us at 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com to confirm.
Rerouting and Address Changes
We cannot make ANY address changes once an order is placed. If you are unable to accept delivery of your package as ordered, we will need to cancel your order, return the package to sender and have you replace your order through our website.
Keep the Box
We suggest you keep the shipping box or boxes for at least 30 days. It is actually a great idea to keep boxes for audio products for the life of the product. Having the box and all packing will increase the trade-in value should you decide to move up and they are handy to have should you ever need to send the unit in for repair.
How To Receive a Motor Freight Order
The trucking company will contact you to schedule a convenient time to deliver the order. Please note that you must be present for delivery.
Visually inspect the box to make sure you see no signs of damage. If you notice any damage at all, take some pictures with your phone and make a note of them on the delivery receipt the driver will ask you to sign. If it is obvious that the product is damaged, please refuse the order and contact us immediately at 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com.
Open your box as soon as possible and inspect the product for damage and contact us if you find anything wrong.
uShip In-Home Delivery
Due to current concerns surrounding COVID-19, uShip is able to offer THRESHOLD SERVICE ONLY at this time. To ensure everyone’s safety, uShip is advising carriers to refrain from making room-of-choice deliveries. Threshold service consists of the shipment being brought into the first door of the address or the lobby of an apartment/condo, and does not include set-up, installation, assembly or debris removal.
What to Expect: Most oversized items will be delivered within 2-3 weeks. Your carrier will place your item inside the first door of the address or the lobby of an apartment/condo.
Appointment Scheduling: Your delivery partner will call 24-48 hours prior to delivery to arrange an appointment window.
How to prepare for in-home delivery:
- Determine the clearest path from the street to your home
- Measure entrances and hallways to ensure your item will fit
- Remove any wall hangings or clutter to ensure a clear path and to prevent damages
- Remove old furnishings to allow placement for your new piece
Check your furniture for damages: We rarely expect damaged furniture, but in the instance it does happen, we have you covered. Once your item’s packaging is removed, check for any damages that may have occurred in transit. Take pictures of any damages and notate appropriately on the delivery receipt. Keep possession of the damaged piece and contact us via phone or email and we’ll start the process to repair/replace your new piece of furniture. For uShip customer support, please call 800-698-7447.
At Audio Advice, we pride ourselves on customer satisfaction. We'll bend over backward to make sure you're 100% satisfied and we won't accept anything less. We offer 30-day hassle-free returns and personalized service from real, live people.
If an item doesn't meet your expectations, you may return or exchange it in its original condition and packaging within 30 days for a full refund, minus shipping fees. Items shipped back in like new condition through standard shipping carriers will only incur a flat fee of $15 to return. If the items were initially shipped through free scheduled delivery via motor freight (commonly referred to as LTL), returning them will result in return shipping fees starting at $150. These items include but are not limited to, oversized items such as TVs, certain subwoofers, floorstanding speakers, furniture, and most items weighing over 75 pounds. Return fees will also apply for exchanges. We want to treat your system as if it is our own and want you to be completely satisfied with your purchase.
Please see the instructions below. We only accept returns for any product purchased directly from our website. If merchandise is not returned in its original condition or is missing packaging, manuals, accessories or other parts, or the resale value of the product has been impaired, a partial refund will be given and calculated on a case-by-case basis.
Non-Returnable Items
The following items cannot be returned or cancelled:
- Special/Custom Order Items
- Open Box Products
- Gift Cards
- In-ear headphones cannot be returned once the packaging has been opened due to personal hygiene reasons. Please contact our customer care team if you'd like help choosing.
-
Turntables With a Broken Stylus: All turntables ship out with the stylus intact. If you return a turntable or phono cartridge with a broken or missing stylus you will be subject to a return fee. Please be careful when setting up your turntable and contact us with any questions.
Is It Easy To Return An Item?
Yes, simply give us a call at 888.899.8776 or you can email our support team at support@audioadvice.com. Many times our team of experts can help figure out why the product might not be working like you expected and get things fixed over the phone, so don’t be surprised if we ask a few questions, we love troubleshooting!
If our tech help can not make you happy, we will email over a return shipping label with a Return Number.
Hopefully, you saved all of the original item’s box and packaging inserts. You will want to pack back up your return or exchange in the same way it came out of the original box. Once you have everything packaged correctly, tape the box on the top and bottom to assure it stays together. If Audio Advice shipped the item to you inside a second box, it's a good idea to use that same extra box to help prevent damage on its way back to us. To avoid it accidentally coming back to you, use a magic marker to cross out the old shipping label or just tear it off.
The return shipping label we send you will have our address on it, just make sure you take the box to the right shipper (UPS, FEDEX, or USPS) as per the label.
If you are close to one of our stores, please let us know if it is more convenient for you to return it to us directly. You will still need to get a return number by contacting us and shipping and/or restocking charges may apply.
When Will I See My Refund?
It usually takes around 7-14 days for the refund to show up on the payment method you used. We do inspect all returns for damage and accuracy of the item inside the box before issuing a refund. Some items may be subject to shipping and restocking fees.
Can I Exchange My Purchase For Something Different?
Sometimes those big speakers just don’t fit in the room or you might have bought a small subwoofer and later found out you’d love a bigger one. If you would like to make an exchange within 30 days of receiving your item, just give us a call at 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com and we will help work out the details. Additional shipping charges and return costs may apply.
How Do I Cancel An Order?
If the item has already shipped out or is a special order item, it is not possible to cancel the order. Please contact us at 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com to start the return process.
What If I Find Shipping Damage?
We need to know right away about any shipping damage. Please contact us at 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com within 48 hours of your delivery so we can get the ball rolling on making things right. It’s very helpful to take some pictures and email them to us if possible.
Can I Refuse A Shipment?
You can, but unless the item is damaged, shipping and restocking fees will be deducted from your refund. If your item arrives damaged and you are lucky enough to be there, snap some quick pics and refuse the order. Then contact us so we can get a replacement on the way.
What Happens If My Order Is Defective?
This is actually pretty rare, most consumer electronics work fine out of the box 99.9% of the time. We’d like for you to contact us first by calling 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com so we can help get to the bottom of things. If your item is indeed defective during the first 30 days, we can usually exchange it for a new, replacement unit.
What About Service After 30 Days?
Audio Advice has a great relationship with all of our brands and can help you with warranty service by the brand after our 30-day guarantee period. Even after the warranty expires, we can arrange for service by the brand on products purchased from Audio Advice. Just call 888.899.8776 or email support@audioadvice.com.
How Do You Determine A Restocking Fee?
You may not believe it, but sometimes we receive items back that were put in the box with zero packaging and are completely destroyed or are missing many of the pieces that came with the item. We also track serial numbers and will get back different serial numbers. We’ve even seen different items than what we shipped out be returned. However, it’s very important to package your return properly so that nothing goes missing or gets damaged in shipping, which will result in a restocking fee or even no refund at all. If a product is opened and the market value of the product is reduced, then a restocking fee may be applied to the cost of restocking and the reduced market value of the product. The bottom line is if you treat us fairly, we will do the same.
Audio Advice strives to provide industry-leading support and service while also maintaining the lowest prices available on products for our customers. We work hard with our vendors to bring our customers the best products at each price point. As a part of that process, we work with our vendors to provide the lowest pricing in our stores and on our website.
Our prices should always be the same as any other authorized dealer, including big-box retailers and major online retailers.
If you believe that you have found a lower advertised price from a legitimate authorized seller, call us and let us know so we can make sure we can correct any inadvertent error on our side. As a matter of policy, we update our prices automatically if a vendor changes its authorized pricing policies, so we generally have the best prices all the time. Increasingly, there are knock-off copies of products online, usually sold by non-authorized dealers.
Please be sure that the item meets the following conditions:
- The item is brand new, in stock, and available for purchase
- The item has the identical model number, color, etc as the item on our site.
- The seller is an authorized dealer
As always, our goal is to provide a terrific customer experience, including industry low prices. We appreciate your support.
Overview
The High Notes
High Efficiency
Neutral Open-Back Sound
You'll Hear All of Your Music
Company & Product Overview
Many audio companies have sprung to life from a single, simple idea. Audeze is no different. When two friends met up with an engineer who had been working on designing some super-thin, yet flexible circuit materials for NASA, a light bulb went off. This material might be great for a headphone! In 2008, they sought out Dragoslav Colich, who held 10 patents and had years of experience with planar drivers, to help them develop what has become Audeze’s signature driver. Colich joined up and soon after, Audeze was born with the release of the LCD-2.
Today, Audeze is a thriving company with more than 50 employees. All products are handcrafted and designed at their home office in Santa Barbara, CA. In a world of offshore manufacturing, they buck the trend. They have grown from a single headphone to 17 models and have even ventured into the world of pro audio with some serious microphones for the recording industry. Speak to anyone on their team and you will immediately understand that they have a real passion for producing the best possible sound.
Today we’ll be reviewing the Audeze LCD-X, which sits in the middle of their top-end LCD range of headphones. It is an open-back, planar magnetic design, but is designed in a way that does not require as much power to drive as many of their other headphones. It can easily be run with a modest headphone amplifier or even a smartphone.
Packaging, Design & Build Quality
The Audeze LCD-X comes supplied with a solid carrying case made of a tough plastic material. The case is almost as much a tackle box as it is a headphone case, and looks very similar to the Pelican brand cases that people use to transport delicate electronics. You’ll never have to worry about your headphones getting damaged while they are in this case. However, you will also need a pretty large bag for it. The LCD-X itself is pretty big, and the case is bulky at 14” wide by 12” deep by 6” tall.
Included with the headphones is a detachable multi-conductor headphone cable. The business end that connects to your headphone jack is one of the most solid headphone plugs we have ever seen. It has a great strain relief that ends in a hard rubber connection with a massive, solid metal sheath that houses the gold-plated full-sized headphone plug. The box also includes a mini-plug adaptor — similar to a Grado adaptor, it has a solid female end for the ¼” standard plug that is gold plated, a short length of cable, and a gold-plated mini plug. We like this idea because if you added a standard solid adaptor, you would have a lot of stress on your mini jack since the standard plug is so massive.
The cables that connect to each ear cup are detachable and provide a solid connection, with a tiny button on the side to unlock them from the headphones. Our only gripe is that determining which is the right or left cable almost requires a magnifying glass! The part of the connector where the R or L is located is solid black, as is the letter, which is tiny and barely raised. We understand that they are trying to keep a clean look, but perhaps a better way would have been to have the inner connector color-coded.
The Audeze LCD-X itself does pass our earcup left/right identifying test as the sides of the headband are clearly marked. Plus, once you get to know them, you won’t even need to look because the earpads are tapered in a way so that they are much larger towards the rear.
Like all of the LCD headphones, the X uses a single planar magnetic driver. The material that creates the sound is less than the thickness of human hair! This single driver does need to be pretty large to move enough air to create sound, so the LCD-X is a pretty large headphone. The active part of the driver itself is about 2” by 3” in diameter.
Build quality on all Audeze products is exactly what you would expect to see from a luxury product. All of the materials used are top-notch, with a fit and finish that should provide years of enjoyment.
Comfort
Take one look at the Audeze LCD-X and your first impression might be that these are all about performance, not comfort. The fact is, the design team had the deck stacked against them. The driver is large, so the ear cups are huge. The magnets inside the drivers are extremely strong, causing each driver to weigh 5.4 oz., not including the enclosure.
With all of this adding to greater performance, it would have been easy to just let comfort fall by the wayside. Instead, the team at Audeze stepped up! The super plush ear cups are large enough to completely cover just about any sized ear. They are wrapped in soft leather that holds what is probably the softest memory foam we have ever encountered in a headphone. The combination just feels super luxurious against your head.
The way the ear cups connect to the headband is rather unique. The headband attaches to the ear cups off-center and more towards the front. The thick pad on the ear cups is tapered and much thicker at the back than the front. This combination takes a headphone that weighs in at a little over 22 ozs and makes it rather comfortable.
Adjustability on the headband is done with the “click” method. It takes a bit of effort to move from one click to the next, assuring you that once you have them where you want them, they are not moving. Little indentations on the post allow you to easily tell where you are so that you can line up each side evenly.
We have to give Audeze credit for making a pretty heavy headphone very easy to wear. They're not as comfortable as something like a Focal Clear MG, which is similar in price, but they weigh about 50% more than the Clear, which is a totally different design.
Features & Technology
Audeze’s claim to fame is its patented planar magnetic driver. The diaphragm is almost four times larger than what you see in most headphones, yet is thinner than human hair. Audeze uses a two-sided magnet array to power this single driver. By driving it from both sides, distortion is reduced to almost nothing. The very lightweight driver responds incredibly fast, which allows it to reveal all kinds of subtle details in the music. A planar magnetic driver like this is also superlinear in its frequency response which yields a very natural sound across the entire spectrum.
Audeze developed another patented technology for the material used on either side of the driver. They call it their Fazer Element system. This looks a bit like an open set of Venetian blinds. These guides help reduce resonance and give the Audeze LCD-X its amazing, open sound.
With their relatively low impedance of 20 ohms and their efficiency of 103db, the Audeze LCD-X can easily be driven by a smartphone. While this will allow you to use them while traveling, we would hope if you got such a great sounding pair of headphones, you would pick up something like a Chord Mojo 2, AudioQuest Dragonfly Red, or Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital to really see what they can do.
Performance
We set up our testing of these with a couple of our favorite headphone amps. On the high-end, we used the Chord Hugo 2, and on the other, we used the Pro-ject Pre Box S2 Digital. Each of these had no trouble driving the Audeze LCD-X to volumes far louder than we would ever recommend listening to.
Audeze deserves kudos for pointing out on their website that you should protect your hearing and listen to reasonable levels. We have the exact same philosophy. With a headphone this efficient, you can do some serious permanent damage to your hearing if you listen for even a minute or so at excessive levels.
When you listen to some of your favorite tracks with these for the first time, we guarantee you will hear all kinds of things you have never heard before! Unless you had something like this in your system before, be prepared to spend hours going through your music library.
We played a wide variety of music on them, using both Tidal and Roon to access our own library. We spent about 4 hours of constant listening and we never got any sense of fatigue.
From top to bottom, these headphones are just extremely linear. You might expect a planar driver to have a top-end emphasis, but not so with the Audeze LCD-X. The top-end does extend out way beyond the range of human hearing, but it is just super sweet in its presentation. Voices sound very natural. When you hear a deep bass instrument, it is full, rich, and it reaches incredibly low.
Perhaps the most impressive part of their presentation, however, is just how big they sound. You will almost feel like you are listening to speakers with a wide soundstage that allows each instrument to stand out on its own.
One great example of this is on the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” It is most revealing if you have the version from Hot Rocks HDTracks remastered in Hi-res. At the beginning of the song, there is a choir, followed up by a french horn solo on top of the choir, all the way over in the left channel. Right at the very end of the last note from the French horn, a trombone comes in on top of it. On the $700 headphones we had on our desk, you could hear this, but barely. On the LCD-X, the distinction was so apparent that it made the other headphones sound broken!
In fact, they’re so good that they will reveal any issues with the recording or gear you may be pushing them with. When comparing MQA to non-MQA, then comparing those same tracks from HDTracks that were on our NAS drive, you can clearly hear each level of improvement.
Another very interesting thing we liked was how they are set up to interact with Roon. Roon is a great music management system that has the ability to do digital signal processing. Audeze worked with Roon to create profiles for all of their headphones. In their search for perfection, Audeze found they could improve the linearity of their sound a bit more by adding a little DSP. This curve is pre-set inside Roon for each model. While the difference is not night and day, we loved the improvement offered by this cool Roon setup. It took Bob Seger’s Greatest Hit album from 1994 to a whole new level and had us tapping our foot through the entire album.
Overall Recommendation
If you love to hear all of the tiny subtle details in your music and enjoy a super-wide headphone soundstage, the Audeze LCD-X may be just what you’re looking for. With its incredible efficiency, you can enjoy them with your phone on the go or really make it shine by pairing it with a great headphone amp. Like many good things in life, it comes at a price both from a cost and weight standpoint, but their luxurious build means they will still feel pretty comfortable, and they just sound awesome.
