I had the Pulse Infinity and LPS and gave it good amount of break in. Same experience here. I found the sound was clean, low noise, black background, good bass, good soundstage e.t.c but it was lifeless and lacked realism. It sounded like hi-fi, not a high end sound.
There are plenty of people who have the opposite experience. I put it down to these possible reasons...
1. Equipment matching / compatibility - This is always a factor, perhaps only certain equipment really gels with the Pulse
2. Product variants - There are so many design variants of the Pulse, perhaps certain input and outputs combinations used work better than others with certain downstream equipment
3. Bad manufacturing batch - This is certainly a possibility considering what has happened with LHLABS suppliers.
4. Experience - How to put this delicately... perhaps some people have not experienced real high end audiophile sound. Many people here on Head-Fi deal in the low price bracket. This is not to say expensive is always better, i have heard plenty of 20k systems that sound garbage, but once you hear true realism in audio its hard to go back to a hifi type of sound.