The X2HR is 30 ohm and 100 sensitivity. A phone can drive it. If your asgard couldn't, it was faulty.

It could drive it, (edit: meaning it worked… but didn’t get very loud) but only in high gain mode did it get enough volume to be enjoyable. ASR noticed this, too.

I asked Schitt tech support and they said this was normal behavior for how they designed it... maybe to make running IEMs less confusing.

Plenty of power, but a fair amount of distortion it seems.

Meanwhile, here I am driving a Susvara and HE6se v2 from the lowly Asgard 3, lol. To each their own. :P

What did ASR notice? They only said they were surprised that Ether CX weren't superloud. Nothing else. If you had enough volume, you were good (you HAD enough volume... X2HR is a very efficient headphone that can be driven by a mobile phone, and Asgard is a crazily powerful amp).

Btw - term "driving" means having enough volume and that's all. It has nothing to do with the sound signature.

Had the original L30 (after they addressed the explodiness) and didn't really see it as a powerful amp. Didn't think the Asgard 3 was either, but no worse.

You sure you're not confusing their sound signature? Going from memory, Asgard is warm, a little soft in the transients, doesn't have much subbass, slightly rolled off treble, slightly emphasized upper-mids, narrower but deeper soundstage. L30 was more neutral, had a slight mid-bass hump, and while the treble was present, I remember thinking something about it felt lacking. Maybe they changed something with the L30 II.

I wouldn't say one is clearly better than the other but I preferred the Asgard 3. L30 felt a bit lifeless whereas I thought the Asgard 3 did a better job of conveying dynamics with more nuance. Better staging too imo.

Then again, I didn't love the X2HR either. To each their own =).

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It drove it just fine in high gain. Had to crank it up to 100% on normal gain to get it to conversational level. It wasn’t loud enough until you flip the high gain switch up.

Indeed. Could be. The bass on this thing is great. I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference with them both being solid state.

I’m looking for an upgrade to my X2HRs. Not sure what direction to go in. Massive soundstage, good punch, okay highs, gets good with EQ. I want more of the same, just better, I guess. Lol. I got some 400ses on sale to test hifimans and then maybe step up to JM edition HER9s.

I clarified my response. Yes, both low and high gain drove my X2HRs, but low/no gain was fairly quiet even at 100%. Like having a face to face conversation in an office.

Yeah, not sure why that was the case for you. I regularly flip between high and low gain, when swapping between a wide range of headphones, and I have not noticed any noise or distortion - despite how it can come across in measurements. To me, whatever it takes to get it to the right volume is fine, so long as the signal remains perceptibly clean; and so far, I have not had any complaints.

No matter, though. So long as you found something you're happy with, and enjoy using, then it's all good. :)

Something seems screwy. Assuming Philips's sensitivity spec is accurate and the input signal to the amp is enough to get it near the limits of its power capabilities at low gain, 150mW should be sufficient for hearing damage inducing SPLs.

Ah well, if low gain is busted, new amp solves the problem.

That's so good to hear, I bought a L30 II from linsoul on Amazon due to warranty (I'm in Brazil), it's still in between sorting facilities in dongguan (funny name for a city dOngGuAn), and you've just described everything I was hoping for, coming from a soundblaster G6 paired with the x2hrs and Anandas, thank you fellow dude :)

Were you using the asgard with the DAC module?

No

That's odd then. The asgard should be able to power the X2HR with plenty of headroom

It'll blow them up in high gain, but normal gain is only useful for the IEMs I've been testing or higher sensitivity cans.

I've got the L30 IIs at about 30% when gaming (Playing Project Diablo 2 right now) and 90 - 100% when listening to music on Tidal on middle gain. The L30 has 3 gain settings (L/M/H) and Asgard 3 has 2.

Do you have other headphones that you've tested on these amps? I could drive my X2HR to uncomfortably loud (not ear-splitting, but probably at least 85+ dB) levels out of a simple, USB-C dongle that outputs 1V. Sounds like something might be wrong with your headphones (or their cable) if they need such high levels of gain to get that volume.

Even in low gain the asgard should be able to destroy those cans lol. Most schiit amps are pretty OP when it comes to power

Yeah that Asgard 3 wasn't working correctly.

Just IEMs. The guys in the ASR review said they had the same thing where it wouldn't get very loud on low gain.

The L30 II is twice as powerful compared to the OG.

Amir at ASR was using an authentically hungry planar. Your headphones are efficient DDs, I can’t imagine there’s an amp that can’t drive them loud enough on low gain.

How loud are you playing your music?

If you ever get the chance to I'd highly recommend you try the HE6SE v2 on a beefy class A amp. I was running mine off a topping L30 v2 for a bit while I was putting together my Beta 22 amp and it's night and day when it comes to bass clarity and impact driven off of pure class A with 5W into 50 ohms

I have a Topping L30 II coming in the mail because I'm getting real tired of my Herasy's scratchy pot... And with Amazon's extended return policy, I really saw no downside.

Hopefully I'm in the same boat and enjoy it too!

https://i.imgur.com/1Nt6ZTD.jpg 🤷‍♂️

Yeah, I do have a Class AB speaker amp, which I use from time to time on a separate desk setup. It is a richer listening experience for sure, but lately I've been relegated to my WFH desk for the majority of my waking hours, so the convenience of using the Asgard 3 there outweighs the desire to fire up the other rig. Especially since the speaker amp only really works well with the Susvara and HE6se v2, but the Asgard 3 is more than "good enough" (to me) for all other headphones in my stable - including the aforementioned two. :)

For what it's worth, I also like to run the Susvara through a humble Massdrop CTH too, which is severely under powered by most standards, on paper. Yet, something about the synergy between the two keeps drawing me back to that combo, and thankfully the gain levels are truly obnoxious so I cannot even get the volume knob up to ~40-50% before it becomes too loud to bear.