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Introduction
Alexander Rosson and Sankar Thiagasamudram were just a couple of headphone enthusiasts a few years ago when they decided to have a go at building a new generation of planar magnetic headphones. They showed their first prototype driver design shoe-horned into another headphone housing at CanJam LA 2009. By October of that year, Audeze was showing their first complete product, the LCD-1.

Eight months later, I brought my…

Audeze has done a spectacular job of making these headphones comfortable given the size and weight of this type of headphone. Both the LCD-2 and LCD-3 use lambskin leather, though the LCD-3 earpad and headband leather is a more supple and higher grade material. For those who would prefer leather-free pad covering, there is an optional faux suede (polyester microfiber) earpads and headband available at no extra charge when ordering. Users who prefer this type of material report sonic…

Sound Quality
As you can see from the graph above, the overall measured performance of the LCD-2 and LCD-3 is quite similar. Listening to these to cans confirms the measurements: both these cans sound cans sound very similar...and great! One quick note: Audeze headphones have changed in their sound quality quite a bit over time (see graphs on measurement page of this article), the listening impressions here are with current (June 2012) product, and differ somewhat from my experience with previous iterations of these headphones.

The first thing you'll notice with Audeze planar…

Before we get to the current headphone measurements, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the evolution of these headphones over time. In the graph above you'll see the measurements of the various iterations of the LCD-2. The blue trace is the original LCD-2. You'll note that it falls off at the very lowest frequencies a bit more then the others, this is likely the somewhat stiffer pads not providing the quality seal of the softer subsequent pads.

In the region around 1kHz you can see…

Ever since my scathing review and video of the Beats Solo, I've been keeping my eye out for some cheap Chinese knock-off that would crush it. It shouldn't be too hard--I found the Solo to sound awful. So when a U.S. distributor phoned me up with an offer to send a pair of Noontec Zoro headphones my way, I said sure, no promises on a review but I'd measure them and have a good listen...and boy did I!

Noontec Zoro (~$100 or less)
The Noontec Zoro is an on-ear, semi-sealed headphone available in three glossy finishes:…

Sound Quality
The Zoro slays the Solo! So, I had to break out a few headphones that compete well at around the $100 mark to see how good they really are. I compared the Zoro with the Skullcandy Aviator, Philips Citiscape Downtown, Creative Aurvana Live!, and Koss TBSE (DJ100). The Zoro held it's own in this crowd of $100 over-performers, I came away feeling it had the best balanced sound of the group. I detected a slight muffling in it's character relative to some of the other cans, but it pretty handily delivered the tightest bass, and seemed to deliver a heft and substantiality to…

Logitech UE6000 ($199) and UE9000 ($399)
Amidst the avalanche of new personal audio gear recently released under the Logitech UE brand (InnerFidelity article here), are two full-size, around-the-ear, sealed, noise-canceling headphones. The Logitech UE6000 is wired, while the UE9000 adds wireless Bluetooth capabilities.

Physically, the two headphones are fairly similar. Both are gloss and matte black plastic primarily, with gray and blue accents, and appear to be very well built. The ear-pads are medium density memory…

Sound Quality---Wired, Passive
Wow! Man, do these headphones sound very, very good in passive mode. No, I wouldn't call them "Audiophile Grade", but I can't think of any sealed headphones that really cut the mustard anyway. And they do a fine job of isolation in passive mode. If it weren't for the fact that the UE6000 is very attractively priced, I'd encourage Logitech to remove the noise canceling feature and sell a model at $149. But at $199, I simply can't think of a better sounding pair sealed cans, passive or active. In fact, I can't think of a better sounding pair of sealed cans…

Measurements in Passive Mode
Logitech UE6000

Logitech UE9000

As you can see from the charts above, both headphones measure quite similarly. I suspect both headphones share a lot of design effort in common, and the small differences between the two are likely caused by small differences in the capsule geometries due to the changes in electronics and battery compartment. I heard very little difference between cans in listening tests.…

The Parrot Zik ($399)
I'm an audiophile, but I'm a human first. I like sexy. I like cool. I like to have fun. Human stuff...I'm human. The human in me gets a big kick out of these headphones. The audiophile, not so much. And therein lies the conundrum: whether or not you will like these headphones will depend on whether you can successfully identify with your basic human self, and put your inner-audiophile in the corner for a time out. It's just a matter of focus. In this case, I choose to focus on being human, and my inner-…