Articnoise
Headphoneus Supremus
There's also the fact that through the years, Audeze has slowly changed the sound of their headphones from being heavier in the bass to lighter in the bass. Clearly the amping is not the problem here if I felt the Audeze wasn't hitting harder on the Asgard2, and Jerg felt the same with the Conductor and an Eddie Current. We both hear perfectly fine too.
I'm not wasting my money at all by 'using a 200 dollar amp with 2000 dollar headphones.' That makes it sound like you value their cost way too much. First of all, headphones are 90% of the overall sound in a chain, so I am happy I get to hear the LCD3 and get a fundamental understanding of how it sounds, without having to go overboard on upstream equipment. Second, both the Asgard2 and Uber Bifrost punch well above their weight in terms of cost is the opinion from ears I trust (those same ears also have extensive experience with amps and dacs costing multiple thousands of dollars.) Clearly, throwing more money at the headphone isn't the underlying issue here.
LCD2/LC3 doesn't hit hard? Yeah, that's exactly what I hear. Their bass is more atmospheric than visceral, as is with planar magnetics in general. If it helps you any, I let my friend (a beats owner) try both the LCD3 and HE-560. He's not really an audiophile, but he's come to use very vague terminology over the years thanks to me-- words like airy and layered to describe certain things. He thought the LCD3 had more bass but he thought the HE-560 hit harder.
There's nothing wrong with any of our ears, and most likely nothing wrong with the upstream gear. Hell, even Tyll says that he thinks the most recent Audezes aside from the LCD-X could use more bass. I don't agree that they could use more bass, but I do agree that the LCD-X and XC (which use the same driver) are the bassiest Audezes I've heard, with LCD2 and LCD3 being more subdued-- a complete 180 compared to the general conclusion from Audeze followers saying that the LCD-X is thinner in the low end and more neutral than the 2/3.
I don’t agree at all on this! In my experience everything matters. Some more than others. What dac, amp, source etc. definitely matter much more than 10 % all together. The gear that is not as good as the rest is going to be the SQ bottleneck in all system – audio or other.