My amp looks nothing like that gorgeous rendering, I named mine the dalek killer for good reason. The sound is superb, I have used many headphones with it at meets but am personally a planarhead so mostly orthodynamics. In fact the Audeze LCD2 were the headphones I listened to most soon after it was completed and I reviewed the LCD2 with this amp. It has great voltage swing with serious power capabilities for a headphone amp, thus it is not geared towards high nor low impedance headphones. It has the voltage swing for the toughest high impedance cans and enough current reserve to control even the least efficient low impedance headphones.
Direct comparisons - not many have been done. I compared it at a meet to a maxed out woo audio 22 and preferred the liquid fire with both orthodynamics and the beyer T1. One of my favourite commercial amps is the red wine isabella and I feel that the liquid fire suites my sonic preferences better. I know there has been more comparison done wrt some of the more powerful amplifiers but I do not have the experience to comment. I can tell you that it reaches down low and controls even the most exciteable bass , is able to image with superb precision and allows instruments to "breath" in the tonal subtleties of each note. It is technically very good and an extremely fast amp for a tube hybrid but it never sounds sterile of lifeless. Music really sounds involving and life like. It is sadly a little merciless with poor recordings and lower front end, so source and headphones need to be good to experience what the amp is capable of offering.
I am sure Alex will post more information in his forum too.
..dB
