Lohb
Headphoneus Supremus
I guess I don't understand the interest in the expensive dedicated headphone amp route. I have gone that path and gotten reasonable results which sounded pretty good and quite enjoyable. But this path has come nowhere near the sound from a full power amp equipped with a proper voltage divider network. My first experience was with a 10 watt/ch Sophia Electric and my LCD's. I picked up the Sophia for $350.00 and they can be had for less. The voltage divider cost me about $300.00 to build. You can buy a prebuilt Robinette Box for about $75.00 $100.00. This blew me right out of my chair. I could not believe what I was hearing. I have had a $75,000.00 full stereo setup that could not touch this setup.
Audeze states that the LCD 2 can withstand 15watts of instantaneous power for milliseconds but they recommend between 3-5 watts of power. Remember that amp manufacturers quote their rated power output into certain loads. For example 10 watts into 8 ohms will only give you approximately 1.5 watts into 53 ohms but does that make those LCD's sing. I find the LCD's very warm and this is accented more by using tubes. I tried the Musical Fidelity M1HPA which is supposed to put out 1.1 watts into 32ohms. Still a bit underpowered for the LCD's.
People worry about the noise floor coming off the speaker taps and not having enough volume control to work with. The voltage divider network solves both these problems. The Sophia was dead quiet and I could max the LCD's out at about 10 o'clock on the volume. A good class A biased solid state would sound good as well.
When you say "a proper voltage divider network" it is basically same idea as resistors over speaker taps to give the speaker amp better volume control dial-in ?
I'm also with you there that boutique amp pricing does not necessarily reflect quality but profits spread over a much lower volume of units vs mainstream speaker amps which benefit from economies of scale which reduce the cost to the buyer....and flat impedance with planars opens up that whole area of new/vintage speaker amps. You could probably match the SQ of a Leben etc at 1/4 of the price with a speaker amp if you have enough knowledge of speaker amp company house sounds.