It’s been fascinating watching high-end audio manufacturers properly target the world of gaming. So it was only going to be a matter of time before someone said, yes, some gamers will pay $1400 for a set of headphones.
The open-backed Audeze LCD-GX are, probably, the most expensive gamer-targeted headphones. They’re from Audeze, makers of the excellent Audeze Mobius 3D gaming headphones from last year, and a company with a sterling reputation in the hi-fi audio world. The LCD-GX is their attempt at targeting gamers with cash to burn, being based on the same planar magnetic tech from Audeze’s LCD audiophile range.
Priced at $1399, the LCD-GX feature almost the same design ethos as most of Audeze’s studio reference and flagship headphones, with two large cups that completely envelop the ears. There’s a soft perforated leather strap for your head that’s supported by a thin strip of metal that runs from one ear to the other.
It’s an extremely comfortable set of headphones. It’s also substantially higher-end gear than, say, a regular gaming USB headset. So much so that you require a separate amplifier to properly power the LCD-GX. I have a simple Objective2 headphone amp that I’ve owned for a few years. But for the purposes of this review, Audeze’s local team supplied a Conductor 3X amp/pre-amp/DAC from Burson, an audio company based out of Melbourne. It’s a sweet little unit, and the metal finish pairs really nicely with the LCD-GX. Or any decent pair of headphones, really.
Image: Alex Walker (Kotaku)
Like most of Audeze’s high-end cans, each side of the LCD-GX has its own mini-XLR connector. There’s a detachable boom mic as well, if you don’t have an existing microphone. I found it was about the same quality as the mic from the Audeze Mobius headphones from last year — decent, but not on the same level as a proper dynamic or condenser microphone.
The mini-XLR connectors intertwine into the standard Audeze LCD balanced cable, although an audio splitter, adapter and longer microphone cable is also supplied. The whole thing comes in a very fancy travel case, complete with the foam padding you’d expect to see on the inside of a recording studio.
Once the DAC’s drivers are downloaded and installed, I simply plugged the LCD-GX into the 2.5mm connector and adjusted the settings as necessary. Headphone amplifiers and DACs give you all sorts of options, and the Burson lets you set the level of gain, the source input, emphasis, the FIR filter, and more through a neat LCD screen on the front.
The DAC/amp isn’t a necessity exactly, but the LCD-GX’s power requirements means you won’t get enough volume out of them otherwise. Most audiophiles will already have an amp, pre-amp or DAC, or some combo thereof, but that’s not the case for most gamers. Gaming headphones are typically ones that can be “driven” through a PC or laptop, meaning that your computer’s onboard sound card is capable of supplying enough power to get the full experience. That’s not the case with the LCD-GX, so if you were seriously looking at such an extra pair of headphones, you’d have to keep that in mind.
With the adapters, you can connect the Audeze LCD-GX to just about anything, including the Switch or your headphones if you wanted. It’s supremely extra, and hugely unnecessary unless you’re the kind of person who refuses to listen to anything but the most top-tier TIDAL streams on your phone. But hey, it does work.
As an aside, just a PSA for streamers, or anyone with more finnicky setups. I found the Burson audio interface, which worked best powered via USB, had massive disagreements my virtual audio setups I had across two PCs. Virtual audio cables are handy if you want to, say, apply different settings to Discord versus the sound coming out of your game. (I have it setup for the Kotaku Australia streams so that compressors are applied to Discord and my microphone, so whenever I’m talking, or someone else is talking on the stream, the in-game volume gets softer.)
That quirk aside, I spent most of my time with the Audeze LCD-GX on PC. That’s where I spend most of my time gaming, anyway, and PCs are generally setup in places that are more accommodating for amplifiers and devices that need to be plugged in.
The profile of the LCD-GX is clean and incredibly accurate, which makes sense given that there’s no digital processing of any kind from the headset. It’s completely pure stereo, and the soundstage and imaging is incredibly rich and wide. Games like DOOM (not DOOM Eternal, sadly), The Witcher 3, Tetris Effect and Death Stranding are an absolute treat.
I found the LCD-GX was a little less suited for more competitive shooters, like Overwatch or Valorant. The headphones prioritise full immersion, and it was harder to directly pinpoint the precise location of footsteps and gunshots. But that makes sense in that Audeze already have a product — the Mobius, and more recently, the wireless Audeze Penrose headsets — that’s better suited for competitive gaming. The LCD-GX doesn’t have any of Mobius’s 3D audio tech, but then it’s a headset for audiophiles first, gamers second.
From a gaming perspective, the LCD-GX really shines in large, open worlds with big, expansive soundtracks. Even narrative adventures like Child of Light, RIME and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, games that really lean into the music to draw out the evocative power of their worlds and scenes, have a clarity and fullness that is just immeasurably enjoyable to listen to. But there’s other hidden pleasures. You’ll never laugh so hard at bad voice acting so much when you can hear just how truly vacant and devoid of life the performances are.
At this point, it’s easy to turn around and say: Do you really need to spend $1400, plus extra on a suitable amp/DAC, for audio? And the answer is obviously of course not. Nobody needs to spend that much. Gaming is a luxury hobby, but nowhere near in the same realm as high end, hi-fi audio.
That said, gamers are known for spending absurd amounts of money on trivial, worthless swag. The amount of money some gamers burn on microtransactions, or $35,000 for Star Citizen packages. People have bought these things, happily, on the justification that it makes them happier, that the value is worth it to them.
And, hey, people dropped nearly $2,000 on brand new graphics cards even though it was completely overkill at the time. And I see the Audeze LCD-GX in similar territory, a luxury product for those in the venn diagram of audiophiles and gaming, with a lean towards the former.
For most gamers, or gamers without a background in the hi-fi world, the LCD-GX would always, even under “I just won Lotto” circumstances, be ridiculously difficult to justify. But it does highlight that Audeze has other, vastly cheaper, planar headphones that are pretty damn good in their own right. And some of Audeze’s tech has found its way into headphones from other brands.
The LCD-GX does make me wonder. If Audeze’s headphones are pretty reliable, what happens when that audio expertise ends up in a set of $399 headphones?
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