Does the LD2 series lack headroom

I was wondering what people were experiencing with this amp. I have the little dot II+. Here is my dilemma. I like heavy metal. This type of music requires A LOT of headroom to maintain coherency, but even with lighter prog , low impedance headphones like Grado sr-80, senn hd-201, and medium impedance AKG k701's the amp looses coherency, increases compression, and really has no midrange tube sweetness when pushed. Is this amp just for classical music lovers? I was listening to the amp in various set ups. My main listening was at my home directly connected to my Rotel RCD-1070 with harm-tech 6ns single crystal cable. even after about 50 hours of use. the amps couldn't keep up with the album Talk by YES. There are certain songs in that album that add instruments 1 at a time. With just the guitar the amp sounds OK, but when you add in the drums and keyboards it turns to mush, there is no descent volume level to listen at. It just exponentially adds distortion and compression. Even the light album Damnation by Opeth sounds muffled on every phone I throw at it. Would they be better with like KSC75's or should I just buy another amp like a Cayin? I am planning to get an EMU-0404 soon and hoping to use the amp with my low ohm HD-485 @ 32 ohm. Does anyone think that might help my lack of headroom issue? Please let me know what you think.

OK that does make sense, but damnation sounds really quite clear and not muddy on my home stereo, where I use magnepan MMG's, However, Deliverance is sort of muddy, but Ghost reveries is one of the best Metal albums in recorsing quality in my opinion, I listened to it on a couple of tubed speaker setups and in hdcd, even in 16 bit, and on vinyl, it sounds amazing, not muddy, very clear. I just know that their music needs a lot of dynamic headroom to not sound muddy. if you listen to an amp with +3db of headroom that album will sound amazing. Blackwater Park, that album has many things that just get drowned out , I even have the vinyl of it and it only sounds slightly better than the cd. as far as the little dot, I would think it should have sounded good with my RCD-1070 as that was a well regarded CD player when it came out about 5 years ago, although I have read that the line in the LD2 needs a low voltage signal is that true? because I know some DACs can produce pretty high voltage.

My problem with the amp is that it does OK with one instrument, but add two and it changes is sonic signature completely. It seems kind of rediculous to create an amp that cannot produce more cohenrenct head room on low impedance cans than a portable cd player. although it seems to be able to do this on low volumes that would only suit small cans like ksc75. But why buy an amp that can only do that. I want to know if perhaps I am overloading the input circuits with my rotel and perhaps the emu will track better have better self noise and dynamics itself being that it is 24/192 with 117db SNR. It just seems that even 200$ more or less is too much for a piece of equipment that can't even reproduce anthing rock. When my panasonic CD player does a better job it is sad. The thing is I love tubes, they sound great, in fact I think psycho acoustically they have more real headroom than SS because when they clip they maintain musical linearity more. This amp however doesn't and an amp that is just suited to classical is not what I would call a good amp. That sounds like backwards audiophile engineering. "well audiophiles only like select audiophile classical recordings, so I won't put very good caps in this device because all those audiophiles that actually like rock are just SOL!" Forget the fact there are tons of Early Prog and some metal on MFSL, DCC, and HDCD. But if I wan't to listen to my DCC copy of ride the lightning my 200$ amp just doesn't cut it. perhaps sword_yang can asnwer for me why his amp has so little headroom under normal listening conditions. In fact I thought the LD2+ was supposed to have upgraded WIMA caps and things that would improve headroom, but I guess I was wrong.

By the way wilson's stuff does sound good especially in absentia and deadwing, but the original release of stupid dream was pretty drowned out too, kind of like Blackwater Park. That is why they recently re-released it remastered. Now if they could only remaster Blackwater Park that would be amazing!

Can the Dark Voice 336i play Opeth with authority on a load like AKG k701s and have good headroom? and how good is the channel separation with it not being dual mono? Is it more worth it to buy the 332 instead?