OperaKid, your description of the 009 is scary. If I never heard it, it'd be enough to discourage me of ever trying it. As it stands however, I find it has plenty of body and slam, this ethereal sound the the stereotypical characterization of stat sound and there is no justification for it apart from bias imo. As it stands, I found the lcd 3 plain bottom heavy and totally lacking air and finesse with jazz / small ensemble recordings in direct comparison to the 009.
Of course, as you said, it all quickly gets rather subjective, but for me, it's so obvious the lcds are nowhere near the stats in terms of precision and resolution (I pay attention to shimmer, instrument placement, rendering of room cues, small stuff that makes it sound real for me).
The one thing I liked the lcd 3 better, and by a mile, was some harder / rock music when oomph in the mid bass and bass region is fundamental to enjoy it. Contrary to you, it's really not what I am after when listening to classical, intimist jazz and acoustic instruments rendering in general. Having said that, it might indeed have been an amp issue (I don't recall the amp, could look it up), it was the only item different between the lcd3 and 009 system (same source was used). Then again, it's probably more about ones vision of what sounds real.
What I find a bit misleading in your post is that you were originally implying you hear the "right way" by going to many concerts for instance so you have a good reference. It's interesting to me because no 2 rooms sound the same, no 2 seats sound the same, and no 2 recordings are mastered the same way. No doubt you can educate your hearing that way but I suspect the only common thing between all these concerts is the "full body sensation" with sounds coming from all direction, pure dynamics (live instruments sound so much more dynamic than most audio rigs) and "chest impact" (not necesserily thinking about rock concerts here
, this isn't fidelity, it's early ear aging
).
In that sense, just like someone who would actively listen to full range loudspeaker system alternating with headphone listenings, you might severely miss this lack of chest impact with headphones, making you favor some phones I personally classify as "bottom heavy".
You are right in the sense this is all about sounding "realistic" than correct in the end (and we have a very hard time defining what is that correct response of a phone). But what I want to emphasize is that we don't all pay attention to the same sound attributes amd sometimes have opposed tastes for a particular characteristic. For me, it's all about diseapparing and being a chameleon (I want to hear my cds not my phones). For that, the 009 delivers in spades.
End of rumbling, this might end up tldr
