In this video I’m comparing the 2020 revision Hifiman Sundara to the Audeze LCD-1 in what’s basically a budget planar battle. I already reviewed the older Sundara, but the 2020 revision addresses my biggest complaint: bass extension. The new Sundara rolls off a lot less than the older version, and overall it lands in that typical Hifiman “U-shaped” vibe—fairly flat bass/lower mids, a bit of recession through the upper mids/lower treble, then some energy back up around the upper treble. On the LCD-1 side, the big story is practicality: it’s insanely light (250g), folds up, and is ridiculously easy to drive—I was running it off the Apple USB-C dongle at like 10–20%. Build is very plasticky and feels cheap for $400, but that’s the tradeoff for portability. Sound-wise it’s not tuned like the big LCDs (which I actually like here), with a mild sub-bass roll-off and a more “Ananda-like” mid shape, except the treble doesn’t really come back up at the top end. My takeaway: if you want a desk open-back and care about technical performance, I’d take the Sundara. If you specifically need a portable open-back planar that can run on basically anything, the LCD-1 makes sense—just know the stage is small and the dynamics aren’t great. I also touch on where the HD6XX still fits: tonality/timbre king, and it scales harder with better gear.