Great review. I also own and love the DAC Magic Plus. Still at the end of the day I have to admit the amp section is just slightly lacking. Going to another amp by holding the volume knob pushed in while powering up goes into line out mode. You know your truly in line out as the volume knob becomes unresponsive. I have found even with super sensitive headphones, something like the Asgard One or even the little JDS Labs c421 portable amp gets me slightly better sound. Just a friendly suggestion, which may or may not improve with your headphones in use?

Still going direct out of the DAC offers an honesty of coherence with phase and instrument placement being held together in the time domain.

Going straight out from the DAC does have a close-up detail effect and directness which is slightly lost with the adding of interconnects and amp? Still you should notice slightly better bass and greater head-stage, especially in the mids and lower mids? IMO

Thanks! Yeah I've read that the headphone amp on it isn't that good and just ignored it because it sounds good to me haha.
One day will upgrade to maybe an Asgard 2... First things first saving for an Ether C even though I'm still not 100% sure I will actually have the nerves to buy it.