I’m not acquainted with your particular setup but it sounds audiophile enough to me. Audiophile is a term with variable meaning, but in my eyes, having an external amp for headphones signifies far more -phile for audio than the vast majority of people.

Does it get better from here? Sure. If you haven’t actually heard better though, I might suggest leaving it at this. You could add an extra pair with a different sound signature so your brain does not “get used” to your setup, though I find that some car speakers alone will do that.

I can be reasonably considered to be on the deep end of the headphone pool, and I would never have done so if I didn’t already have a nice speaker setup at the time. And to this day I cannot tell if I came out better for it, in terms of enjoyment of sound quality— my headphones see <10 hours of use a week, and I often have to manufacture reasons to use them. So if you’re not looking for the hobby aspect of it (which can be very interesting, sampling gear is a good use of time), perhaps avoid the so-called rabbit hole.

It’s strange how HE 1 feels not worth it despite many of us spending more money on things we use less. Car enthusiasts here on the higher end of the hobby have similar sentiments: of a car collection, at least one costs far more than the headphones and sits with the battery disconnected. Yet HE 1 feels more wasteful.

I obviously don’t think this applies to most people here, but I’ve seen several comment that they could purchase HE 1– except it doesn’t seem worthwhile. Hifiman’s Shangri-La [Sr] feels like the highest point non-billionaires should consider, but on its face that makes little sense. Perhaps it’s the opulence of HE 1’s materials, which feel less functional?

I blind-tested, to the best of my ability, my Enleum AMP-23R against an Atom amp (made of plastic!) with Hifiman’s Susvara and couldn’t tell a difference. I have mild hearing damage but it shouldn’t be that bad.

Besides the Susvara, I also tried Focal’s Clear and Audeze’s LCD-5. The Clear isn’t said to “scale” particularly well and I’m not familiar enough with LCD-5 to have heard differences there. This was done in my quietest room, which is acoustically treated and quite silent.

That said, I am not a practiced listener by any means and my audio pursuits are based on feelings of “this sounds like live”. I did this test alongside an upgrade-chaser with more discerning ears and we came to the conclusion that it didn’t make an audio difference but they look or feel nice. Our findings weren’t upsetting, I primarily upgrade for aesthetics and wasn’t aware that it was meant to sound better.

Hard to fault buyers for noticing obvious and unusual issues that impact every use of their product. Companies don’t often get free passes for products with built-in diminished performance, especially when they’re consistent about it.