Shoegaze and the physical experience of hearing it at volume is something that changes everything about how you understand the genre.

I listened to shoegaze in headphones for years before I heard it in a venue at volume and realized I had been experiencing maybe half of what the music was doing. The low-frequency content in a heavy shoegaze mix doesn't translate through headphones the way it does through a PA system with subs — the physical sensation of the pressure, the way the bass frequencies move through your chest, is part of the music's aesthetic intention.

This is why I think headphone-native shoegaze listeners sometimes underestimate the genre. What they're experiencing is sonically accurate but physically incomplete. The best shoegaze is designed for a listening context where the sound is a physical object you're inside, not a stream of information you're receiving.

If you've only heard shoegaze in headphones, find a small venue with a good PA and go see a shoegaze act. It's a different genre.