Should drive those without any issues, they're not that hard to drive. You want a little overhead in the power to enable you to play around with EQ as well, but I think you'll be fine with the adi-2 dac fs.

Atom II has a metal case :)

Yes, including in a very quiet listening room at my local dealer. I'm convinced any differences you heard are not from the hardware, but from your own expectations. Let's look at what a power cable does. Power is likely generated a great distance from your home, it then travels down uninsulated...

What utter nonsense. I'm an electrical engineer and there's no way a power cable could do any of that. I'm sure iFi will be happy to back up their claims with some sort of measurement? Those characteristics are really easy to measure.

I'm not having any of these problems. The ANC is not class leading, but works well enough for me. My main use is at my desk at work in an open office and while it's not a total blackout of background noise, with some quiet music on it's totally fine. The Momentum 3 Wireless was released 2...

Modern measuring devices are orders of magnitude better than the 'human hearing nerve'. Citation needed on where an unbalanced connection sounds different to balanced. There's no science based reason for this to be the case (except of course where chip amps can produce more power, and thus play...

Per manufacturer specs: DX300: G5: So if you're using a single ended cable @3.5mm then the G5 wins by some margin. Closer if you're using balanced on the DX300.

What is your gain set at?

Heaps of power for Sennheiser HD650

Does anyone know if the crystals are compatible with the galaxy buds 2 pro?

Check to make sure it's not set to only the balanced/single ended port (depending on which one you're using)

If it's pass through it should be totally fine. That's what the pass through function is for.

Define 'thicker notes' in some way that's not just audiophilese or the whole exercise is meaningless. Like checking which amp is more sour.

I've tried it with my Schiit Ragnarok 2 which can easily put out 20W+ into a 16 Ohm load - not that you would ever want it that loud! I'm sure it would bust the headphones before reaching anywhere near that.

That would absolutely be visible on a FR plot.

I normally set the listening level to 120dB for a bit of headroom which ends up at a little over 600mW required power. Strangely enough that's about what Dan Clark recommends... I'm not convinced that more power makes any difference, once the headphones are sufficiently powered. The iFi device...

I use this for calculating the headphone power requirements: https://www.headphonesty.com/headphone-power-calculator/ Noting here that I usually kick up the listening volume to 120dB to take care of any spikes etc. Based on that your LCD2 needs 159mW which the Q5K can deliver but only over...

Neither of these things have been demonstrated to exist in controlled testing, I'd be very surprised if anyone could tell the difference between the two in blind testing. People are really inconsistent too, often describing the device they don't like, or seems more advanced as 'technical' or...

E1DA 9038S (needs a 2.5mm balanced cable) is tiny and provides plenty of power for the A2N. Likewise the Qudelix 5k with a balanced cable provides enough, so mobile solutions are out there!

Use the Shure app.

It's a 2 channel DAC so I don't think so. You'd need a receiver for dolby atmos or other surround sound.

They sound exactly the same to me, and the manufacturer (who has a lot of experience in this space) agrees.

What are you powering with it? It gets way too loud with my HD 650 and Aeon 2 Noire, and the latter are pretty demanding.

Oh I thought we were talking about the 2.5mm balanced output. You'll definitely want that for HD650 but it's plenty of power on balanced mode.

Qudelix-5k should be plenty of power for your purposes, and won't sound any different to the Mojo 2. You could consider a DAC/AMP with more features (eq, crossfeed etc.). I have the RME ADI-2 DAC FS which is a beautiful device, but above the price range you've provided. The Qudelix can do a lot...