Lily Audio Genesis 1

The catch: drive — The maker lists 75 dB/V sensitivity and more than 10 V of output as the recommended amp. Piezo drivers need voltage swing rather than current. My own target after this round is 20 volts minimum and closer to 30 volts RMS, with 10 W or more being ideal and at least 1 to 1.5 W into 300 ohms. If the amp cannot swing that, the headphone just sounds quiet and small. One tip that changed my results: in the Tidal desktop app, pick the exact USB DAC as the output and tick USB exclusive mode. That gave more volume and better dynamics, and it explains why my earlier impressions of the first version were less positive.

Amps that were enough but not ideal — On an xDuoo TA-20 Plus hybrid tube amp (full volume, DAC at maximum) and a Luxman desktop DAC amp (high gain, bypass mode, volume maxed) I got a good listening level and they sounded good, but with nowhere left to go. On the Aune S17 Pro Evo with S18 Evo DAC they drove well, with the volume at 60 of 63 steps on high gain. On these first amps the staging was more intimate, the bass was not huge and powerful and the dynamics were not front and centre, because the amp could not supply the instant current the big driver wants.

Amps that opened them up — The Erzetich Bacillus II+ surprised me. It rates only about 107 mW into single-ended, yet at 12 o'clock I was reasonably loud, at 2 o'clock loud, and at 3 o'clock dangerously loud. It was clean, punchy, with impactful bass and a ton of detail, and it began to clip past about 3:30, which is far too loud anyway. On the Aune A17 they sounded better than on any other amp I have tried, with a huge stage, better resolution, cleaner and more dynamic, and huge bass. I was on high gain with the pot around 85 to 93 of 99, and 99 was too loud. On the Advance Paris A10 tube hybrid speaker amp, through a speaker-tap to XLR adapter, they were amazing, with plenty of headroom left. I think these were made for stereo speaker amps. Lily Audio sells speaker-tap adapters.

Staging and imaging — The stage is wider than my studio and the separation lets you walk between the instruments. On a Led Zeppelin cover the stage is almost surreal. It is the widest I have heard in a headphone apart from the HiFiMAN Shangri-La Sr, and it beats my Erzetich Charybdis, which has insanely good staging. The intro guitar sits on the wall about three feet away, the voice is dead centre just behind my nose, and the harmonica is wide and above my eyes. It images like a soccer field with four musicians on it. On Yosi Horikawa's Bubbles it is the best I have heard on any headphone, with every ball drop having its own space, front, back, left, right, up and down.

Tonality — Resolution and clarity are like the top HiFiMAN planars, with a bass shelf like the Final D8000 or Focal Utopia. The mids are not dipped, and vocals sound clean, natural, powerful and rich. On The Pretty Reckless' Dear God, Taylor Momsen's voice is powerful and present without taking away from the treble or bass. On Electric Callboy's We Got the Moves, the rough vocals do not muddy and the frantic energy comes through clean and dynamic. On the Advance Paris A10 the mids were a bit more forward, though not in my face. If you like warm and rich mids, put them on a speaker amp.

Bass — Deep, powerful and visceral. On a cover of The Sound of Silence the bottom notes made the headphones actually shake, with no clipping or distortion, just ocean-floor bass.