"I prefer more forward vocals and a wide soundstage."?

To my ears and most other peoples reviews, the XS have quite a large soundstage.

As far as driving it, my Asgard 3 on low gain with the knob at 9 o'clock is more then enough, depending on the recording.

An amp that is rated to drive 1W into 16ohms oughtta be plenty. The Schiit Magni is plenty of amp for almost any headphone if you're not looking to get too spendy.

Forward vocals and a wide soundstage sounds like on oxymoron to me.

The bluesound node DAC only has about 87dB SINAD. I think that's good enough, honestly. ASR does not though and recommends adding a DAC to boost performance. Even something like a schiit Magni should do the trick.

Well if you listen at 55-60db average then you will be using 1mW on average but on peaks it can reach a 100mW so anything that can deliver 200mW into the headphones impedance is good. EQ a 3.5kHz or 5kHz hole into the XS and watch the soundstage expand or alternatively use any kind of crossfeed and hear the magic.

Schiit Magni

From my experience Edition XS are quite power hungry, the more you give them, the better they perform. One of the best amp match I had the chance to try was the Burson Conductor HA160D. Plenty of dynamics and terrific bass extension and speed. So look for something with at least 4w at 16 ohm and you should be more than happy.

XS are definitely one that needs a proper amp and dac. As to what to pick, that depends on budget and preference. A Schiit Magni and Modi stack would be a good starting point if you just want something simple.

I definitely wouldn't describe XS as laid back or lacking soundstage, so I think you're on the right track.

Right now I'm using a Teac UD501 and a Magni Heretic and getting pretty great results. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds considering I bought the Heretic as a temporary solution; it has tons of clean detail and good control over the bass.

Planning on going way overkill and switching to a Purifi speaker amp for my setup since I'm driving Stax as well, although I can't in good faith recommend going that route since it's an easy way to end up with blown headphones :P

The XS has one of the widest soundstage for a headphone with exception sennheiser hd800s.

But it needs a good match when it comes to amp, not only are they powerhungry but source dependent too.

Recommended to use balanced cable as the stock un balanced cable is pretty bad and going to balanced is pretty big difference in this case, check other reviews about this

Thank you. I'm learning a lot about these headphones. There are a zillion balanced cables out there, I'll add that to my list once I figure out how I drive these.

I'm considering the NAIM Uniti Atom since it can stream, drive speakers, has a great DAC, and is good with headphones. I use Tidal HiFi as my source, and that is a good match also.

>Asgard 3

Have you used the DAC version of this? The DAC in the BlueSound Node is OK, but I'm wondering if this one is better. This looks like a nice piece.

Fair point. I need to explain better, remember I come from speakers more than headphones.

Many amps/speakers I have listened to can lose the front/primary vocal in the imaging/soundstage. The real strong systems do a better job of separating that vocal and placing it in front of everything else, so you get a wide soundstage with the perception of the vocalist being front middle. Obviously the recording has to be done right, but this is one of the things I look for in higher end systems.

Fiio K7 is perfect for me. With my Edition XS I run them on low gain with a balanced cable and run them at around 12-2 o'clock on the dial depending on source.

No, I ordered my amp minus the DAC. I heard mixed reviews on the internal DAC and wanted the flexibility of having a separate unit. I ended up with the Topping E30II, so far no complaints.