Audeze LCDi3 Planar Magnetic In-Ear Audiophile Headphones

Around three years ago, Audeze released a new breed of in-ear headphones into the world with the iSINE 10, 20, and VR models. The term “planar magnetic” wasn’t something you were used to hearing when it came to in-ear models. However, it was a thing and it was here. Mini planar magnetic headphones to slide into your ears and slip into your music with.

Later that year, they launched the flagship Audeze LCDi4 in-ears, which introduced a uniquely beautiful design and build for a pair of in-ears. Everything down to the wire looked like it was brilliantly crafted. No surprise since they would set you back $2,495.

Then most recently, came the ones we get to discuss today–the Audeze LCDi3 in-ear headphones. Launched a few years later and Inspired by the LCDi4, these came in at a more affordable price of $899. Which, may sound like a lot to some, but to a true audiophile, this isn’t always the case (as long as the product properly delivers).

They do share a design similar to the others, taking mostly from the LCDi4. A semi-open-back design, planar magnetic, and incredibly versatile thanks to the inclusion of three different detachable cables.

They include your typical 3.5mm aux option for analog connectivity, a Lightning cable for Apple devices, and a Bluetooth 5.0 module. Each one attaching directly to the buds using a typical two-pin connector, commonly used with many detachable models in the market, an alternative to MMCX (the other common option).

These headphones come neatly packed away into a case that can almost be used as a display case for bragging rights when not in use (in case you are into that kind of thing). They are also quite protected, therefore you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to their being shipped to you.

Upon removing everything from the box, you find yourself with a handful of pieces and accessories to get adjusted to. Of these, you have multiple tips and hooks for sealing them to your ear with, all of your cables, an optional wire clip, a small cleaning tool, a USB charging cable, and a carrying case that offers plenty of room to store everything into (at least, the pieces you most commonly use. There is even a small pouch/section within the case for the loose parts.

There are four pairs of tips that feature a ribbed design on the outside in order to increase grip to your ears. They include a single pair of silicone ear fins to hook to the inner section of your ear, as well as multiple plastic hooks for hooking around the outside of your ear–all user-preference and there are plenty of hooks in case you lose one or one becomes damaged somehow.

All three cables, as mentioned, featuring the two-pin connection for the buds, allowing you to swap between them as you need each one and giving you access to both wired and wireless usage.

The Bluetooth module features Bluetooth 5.0, AptX, AptX HD, and 24-bit wireless audio. Bringing it up to snuff with the rest of the BT world (as of its original release).

One of the benefits of the detachable cable design is that you can replace the cable if it ever gets damaged.  You can also upgrade or replace it as Audeze develops newer accessories or more importantly, newer Bluetooth modules which could allow them to support BT 5.2 and newer releases as they become available. Assuming they stick to the same design of cable at least.

Final thoughts on the over-all design: We felt that for the price, it would have been nice to see more exotic materials than plastic for the outer portion, but then again, we are limited on where they could take it. They could have gone with wood, but it wouldn’t have served an audible function, which would be wasteful when it comes to resources. Aluminum would have added more weight to the buds and they want to keep weight down when it comes to a planar-design. Carbon fiber looks nice but isn’t necessarily lighter, so again, a focus on weight. So as much as we’d like to see a more exotic design to the outside of the buds, there just wouldn’t be a point to it beyond “visual” appreciation, and would likely work against the overall quality of the product. So long-story-short, they seem fine the way they are.

Performance

Now we get to the part of the story we enjoy talking about the most. Where the buds will make it or break it in the scoring of everything. This round, the product being all over the place, making our final verdict something that required us to sit down and discuss everything until we could agree on everything.

Thankfully, there are a lot of positive qualities to these buds that caused us to have to constantly ask ourselves if we are judging them based on how they compare to any style of headphones, or specifically, in-ears. In other words, we felt ourselves judging them a little harshly until we realized we forgot that we had buds in our ears and not a pair of on or over-the-ear headphones. Which then throws our opinions into a messy delight until we can sort them back toward a proper verdict.

Planar headphones have a unique profile to them, unlike their dynamic counterpart. Although the gap between these two approaches has been narrowing within certain specifications, they are still quite unique. They usually have more range within the lower frequencies, however, they usually don’t hit as hard as dynamic models. So they won’t be good for hip-hop/rap/club, but should absolutely blow you away when it comes to vocals, brass, strings, and other instruments that don’t rely on hard-hitting lows. Clarity is a focus more than anything when we are listening to something like this, and clarity is where these deliver brilliantly. In another way, by also providing a much wider soundstage for your ears thanks to their design.

The overall experience is completely dependant upon which cable you are using and the rest of your setup. The results can vary in performance because of this. Therefore, we will break this one down as such.

3.5mm analog: Using the analog cable, our results were all over the place. They didn’t offer much without an amp when paired to multiple Android smartphones. When using a USB-C DAC, performance varied but usually wasn’t impressive when you consider the cost of the headphones. The use of a Creative X-Fi USB-C amp resulted in terrible performance (little within the mid-low to low end). Usually, we found there to be wonderful highs and mids and subpar lows. Some DACs would result in a little more presence within the low end, but it wasn’t enough to impress us. Again though, the highs and mids are great.

We then moved these DACs around to other devices finding very little margin of error unless we made use of powerful DACs that couldn’t be used with mobile devices due to power consumption mostly.

Using an analog tube amp, however, plenty of volume became available to us (of course) and things begin to change. The range of sound was heavily improved upon. There is improved low-end finally. Highs are crisp and absolutely fantastic once again. With this setup, the headphones sing to your ears and you begin to forget that they are in-ear in design. Still, not a lot of low-end, but the low-end that is there is quite detailed. This became our favorite approach for using 3.5mm.

To be fair, they are semi-open-back and meant to be listened to in a controlled environment. You should also drive them differently than a normal off-the-wall of your local retail store pair of in-ears. So they aren’t exactly designed to be carried around with your smartphone. You can make use of a nice hi-res portable media player from a company like FiiO or Astell&Kern, which will change things, although the noise of your environment will still interrupt your experience.

Bluetooth 5.0 module: Honestly, it is hard to impress us with Bluetooth, forcing us to always have to lower our stubbornness due to the compression that goes into the protocol. With Bluetooth 5.0, this is heavily improved, but 5.2 is likely going to be what slowly begins to change our opinion. That being said, these do sound pretty decent for what 5.0 has to offer.

Do they sound as good as they cost? Not really. Performance is impressive, however, this varies between the devices they are connected to. They feature a bit more low-end than 3.5mm, but the overall range still feels quite compressed. It’s best to view Bluetooth as simply a bonus feature that allows you to switch to going wireless when you need them. However, when it comes to wanting to sit down and really enjoy them, you will find yourself switching back to one of the wired options. 

Since they launched in 2019, 5.0 was the best they could have made use of though at the time. It makes use of the AptX and AptX HD codecs, which greatly improve the quality during compression and uncompression.

You do get in-line controls as any wireless pair of headphones should provide and the wireless range (distance) to the connected device is quite notable.

Lightning cable; When we switched to the Lightning cable and plugged them into the closet iPad, we were caught off guard. The quality of sound was greatly improved upon without the need for a DAC or amp. Like the tube amp provided to us with the 3.5mm cable, the highs and mids were absolutely wonderful, and the lower frequencies began to hit harder than they ever did. Again, not as hard as a dynamic pair of headphones, but noticeably better than just about any other method we used for connecting them.

This impressed us and opens these in-ears for mobile usage on the go with your mobile devices and without the need for an additional in-line DAC hanging about. This impressed us after experiencing what we did with the Android phones.

Additional thoughts:

The one thing we found across all devices, was the highs and mids, which really spoke to us. Beyond that, it was a game of chasing after the low-end. Bluetooth being a thing of its own, as once again, simply an added bonus for when you need it, but not for comparable sound to the wired alternatives.

The soundstage was also something to highlight. These in-ears have a huge/fun soundstage to explore throughout all of the tracks you feed them.

Finally, you want to pair them with a source of audio that is best fitting for them, and MP3s are not typically part of this equation. With MP3s, they mostly sound like any other pair of headphones. You likely won’t see the point of these headphones if you only paired them to that kind of media. Streaming is also quite boring unless you have hi-res features like Tidal. Even then, we felt keeping to your local hi-res content was much more pleasing. Even SiriusXM’s nicer channels like Coffee House and Symphony Hall just couldn’t cut it and sound no better than an MP3 (in our opinion). Therefore, everything we have discussed here is based on our pairing them to lossless or better source tracks (ie, FLAC, DSD, Mofi, etc). We also didn’t apply any post-DSP effects to the experience. So you can still adjust the EQ of your device or software and get a little more low-end out of them.

Our Conclusion

So the winning approach to getting the most out of these in-ears was 3.5mm using a decent to high-end tube amp or high-end DAC with plenty of power or connected to a somewhat modern or newer iOS device via Lightning cable. These options will result in a wonderful range, and sometimes noticeable bass. You can adjust EQ from there if you need to. Regardless of how hard the bass hits, the bass that is there is always well-defined and wonderful to listen to. The soundstage is huge and ever so enjoyable. All of this dependant upon your listening environment. Best enjoyed in a quiet atmosphere as the sound around you will pour into your ears if not.

They are pricey, but also quite enjoyable. The battle for the final verdict kept falling between 8.5 and 9 until we settled on a 9 for now. In all fairness, if we broke our ratings down to final detail, they would fall around 8.7 and 8.9. This is not to compare them to similar scores of more affordable models since price heavily contributes to the score of each. Therefore this is based on the price and similar models within this price range, as well as performance, build quality, and aesthetics.

*Average price is based on the time this article was published

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Author: Jeffrey B.
Co-Author: James H.

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