Why would a powerful amp behave like a less powerful amp?

[M0N]

@Dynamic

The thing that kept me away from rnhp was future headphone drivability. Drop ether cx is a favorite of mine. But hp-2 beat it and there was only budget for one.

Could see that, it would not be a good pairing with the ether cx for sure. Some headphones that pair well with the neve imo (copied from something I wrote elsewhere):

Focal Clear or Elex, Grado PS500e or Hemps, Fostex TH900 or X00 (or EMU or Denon), Audeze LCD X/XC, Beyerdynamic DT1990 or T1.2, Kennerton GH50, Audio Technica AD1000/2000X or AWAS or WP900 or R70x, Sennheiser HD800s, Audioquest Nighthawk, etc

But if you ever take the step beyond to the next tier of headphones past the lsa, you’d really want to upgrade to the next tier of amps anyways. But if your sights are set on some planar headphones, you’d be better served by something like the g111 (or if you go mainly planar things like the monolith liquid platinum or cayin iha-6)

@Dynamic

When I had the Jot I also had the bifrost (but for a very short time). And, again, for the money on my hp-2 I was not particularly impressed. I even a/b the jot 2 + bifrost and jot 2 with akm dac by connecting jot through RCA, and flipped the input switch, which seemed to automagically volume match them. I could not tell a difference between them on the hp-2. On the Zen, again, there was some differences but I was never going to use the Zen on that stack.

The jot isn’t that dac picky which is good for not needing to go too high with the dac, but bad for future scaling/upgradability imo. And with the lsa not being as picky it’s not going to be too big of a deal

@Dynamic

I know, I am like one of three people in the entire world who has had that schiit stack and went “meh”.

Lol there’s others out there, all depends on what you are driving and what your goals are

@Dynamic

I think the real answer here is I should let my mobile stuff be driven by mobile stuff (in this case, my hp-2 is included in mobile) and get a desktop setup geared more toward the next few over ears.

Makes sense, a nice dap or portable dac/amp for the iems or portable headphones, and a more serious desktop stack when you take the jump further with desktop oriented cans

[Dynamic]

@M0N

But if you ever take the step beyond to the next tier of headphones past the lsa, you’d really want to upgrade to the next tier of amps anyways.

I have gone as “high” as the arya and he6se, which I assume is considered above LSA, and they were pretty disappointing for me. My primary desire out of audio gear is fun that is extremely competent. The higher I went, the less fun seemed to exist. The drop ether cx, also, wasn’t fun. But it had a clarity that just blew my mind. The hp-2 is a lot of fun, but still completely competent. And I have not found much above it that could do that. ZMF maybe, but I am not confident. And, I feel like it would be a crime to drive a ZMF from a Qudelix. If it worked at all.

This is why I stopped looking at headphones and started looking at the chain. IEMs have all been great on my Qudelix. And if I wanted to up my game there, I would possibly deal with the ifi micro signature.

I think my energy needs to go into other aspects of my audio journey for now. Qudelix just solves all my problems with my current headphones. MUST RESIST ITCH TO UPGRADE.