Thank you for posting this comparison. It's also refreshing to see that a blind A/B test was done.
From reading your comparison, it seems that Schiit did a really great job on both the Magni and Modi.
I was also worried about using my low impedance headphone with the Magni due to it having 5 gain. Thank you for explaining how using a DAC in 24/96+ will let you digitally attenuate the signal down a bit without affecting the sound quality for most recordings.
Right now I have an X-Fi Titanium HD, and I wonder how the Modi would compare to that. I'm tempted to pick up the Modi just because it looks great with the Modi, and than I could just use my sound card with my speakers. It's hard to find good comparisons between hardware.
I noticed that in your pictures it looks like one of your PYST cables is longer than the other. Is it, or is it just an optical illusion? They look like high quality cables, and would work well if I did decide to buy the Modi too.
It'll be really interesting to see how both stacks sound when mixed.