So today I went to the 2nd headphone store I’ve ever been to or seen. This store had a nicer, more usable selection of phones than the 1st store, but the source equipment/system was much worse. I feel my home system with my measly $140 DAC is 10-20x better. I just was not getting much bass out of it, and when I heard bass, there was practically no texture or detail to it. This time, LCD-3 had the same, distinct core sound, but now without its most famous and cherished feature(bass). This time, Clear sounded better, but still not great. This time, a McIntosh amp was there again, but very different from the other model I heard(MA6700?).
Overall, no headphone had any significant wow factor to be heard, bass was limited so much that I couldn’t properly evaluate it, and I felt that the performance of every single headphone was quite hardware limited to MAYBE 50% of what they were capable of. I found LCD-1 to be the most interesting, followed by D8000, LCD-4, and Stellia. All phones were single-ended. LCD-X and Z1R were not available. 
Sony’s were easily the worst, then 2C, 3, and 5.
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Source/DAC: Marantz CD6007 (the massive system bottleneck component, I felt. Played MP3s off a USB drive)
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Amp 1: McIntosh MHA200 (boy, this seemed at least 10 years old, with awful knobs. I would never buy one of these)
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Amp 2: Audio-Technicians BHA100 (full volume at 3% knob? Slightly cleaner sound, as expected, but no real system improvement)
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Grado GS2000e: Surprisingly good balance and sound! Worth $1400…? HELL no… OK slam. Sharp-ish. Artificial treble.
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Grado GS3000e: Better tonality, balance. Dipped mids. Still artificial treble, still overly bright. V-shaped.
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ADX5000: Shrill. Good balance. Congested… Strong treble clarity. Grado-ish. Comfort seemed great!
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LCD-1: Very nice, clear vocals and space! High treble energy. Mostly clear, but some darkness. Cool/interesting detail. Nice space! Treble seems more prominent than bass. Brighter than natural? Good tone! Clear! Nice balance. Lively/energetic. Treble fatigue…? Limited depth. Tiny cups. Mobius sounded more balanced, from memory…and on my home system. Perhaps these are more V-shaped than Mobius.
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LCD-2C: OK… Nothing noteable. A bit dark, muddy. Heavy, as we all know.
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LCD-2: Better imaging and clarity. Still dark mids(?).
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LCD-XC: The nicest tuning/balance of the LCD’s, outside of 4 and maybe 1. Not dark. Detail pops. Small stage. Good bass(it seemed). Nice mids! Realistic tone/presentation. Nice clarity. Overly bright.
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LCD-3: Quite dark. Pleasant! Where is that magic bass…???
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LCD-4: Great balance and treble control. Nice depth, but small spaciousness. Nice imaging. Nice bass? Enjoyable sound. Great, “standard” sound. Slam.
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LCD-5: Lighter, clearer, sharper than 4. More treble? Less bass? Too bright. High clarity. ~Same stage as 4. NOT heavy!
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LCD-CRBN: It was here, ready to rock… but this store isn’t ready for them. (no energizers)
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Clear Mg: Bright. Good bass levels. Enclosed sound…
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Stellia: Indistinct stage… Better than Clear Mg. More depth. No brightness. Relaxed + bassy. Dark… Tonality off.
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Utopia: Good… Bright-ish. Not bassy. Avg bass levels.
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D8000 Pro: Good… Clearer than Utopia. More spaciousness and better imaging. NOT too bright! Nice. Bright, clear. Nice space. Good bass, not very meaty. More treble than bass.
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Z7M2: Bassy, boomy. Muddy! Not clear.
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1AM2: Very bassy! Not clear.
