AUDEZE LCD-5 Guide

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About this app

Planar-magnetic technology dates all the way back to 1970-ties, where brands as Wharfedale, Fostex, Sansui, Aiwa, Yamaha, Audio-Technica and NAD started paving grounds for what later would be known as planar headphones. While others stopped tinkering with such technology, moving their labor towards affordable dynamic drivers, Fostex never stopped crafting planars along the years, but somehow…this technology never peaked. Enter a young and fresh-minded Audeze team that forever changed the headphone market, springing a whole new category of headphones and putting them back on the world map.

As a curious person, I love discovering great sounding gear and sharing it with you, as when something makes me feel great, it’s hard staying silent about it. As a hardcore headphone enthusiast, I’m always on the hunt for the next best thing. I appreciate cost-effective Hi-Fi, especially when high-end technology makes way into affordable stuff that everybody could enjoy. However, when I’m alone in the company of my tunes and a long-waited album hits streaming platforms, I would definitely pick up a pair of high-end headphones that would teleport me into a musical wonderland, where I could be anyone I choose. If a headphone can make me cry and smile in a span of a few minutes, then that’s a perfect headphone for me! I don’t know how, but every single Audeze headphone did it for me, making me feel on top of the mountain, starting with the OG LCD-2 and finishing with the LCD-4 - which I still cherish and love on a daily basis. You can see them in every second headphone related review, already suggesting how often I’m using these babies.

In fact, LCD-4 sounded so great, that for a substantial amount of time they never thought about releasing a successor. Never say never, as behind closed doors, people were already experimenting with different materials, with a much lighter frame, and of course with higher performance drivers, which later made their way into the company’s newest LCD-5 flagship planar headphones. This is their best shot at personal audio and as such, it was priced accordingly. Can the newest challenger dethrone its older brother and other contenders to the iron throne? You’ll find that out soon, as LCD-5 will be compared with its predecessor and with a special guest in the latest chapter of this review. Luckily, the price didn’t skyrocket as everybody expected, bumping it to $4500/ €4500, which is…not that bad for a flagship headphone. Before I’ll tell you a great deal about them, let’s take a look inside their package.

When you see a metallic suitcase and a pair of white gloves after opening it up, you know that you’re dealing with something special. The LCD-5 is no longer coming in a plastic Pelican case, getting a much nicer metallic case that oozes a high-end flair. It has the right size and it features a locking hinge, you can lock it with the included keys, just in case you’ll be traveling in a Man in Black suit. The case itself is nicely protecting the LCD-5 from the outside world thanks to plushy foam inserts. Besides the headphones themselves, you are getting two keys, a pair of while gloves, a certificate of authenticity, a warranty card and a high-end detachable headphone cable terminated with either a 6.35mm or with a 4-pin XLR jack, depending on your order. This is not your regular stock cable, but a much nicer and thicker one (AWG 20) that uses high-purity, cryogenically treated Ohno-Continuous-Cast (OCC) copper conductors. This is as high-end as it can get and you can purchase it separately for $599 for the rest of your headphone collection if you will.