Question for owners of the M3 and IEMs... How is the noise floor? Compared to the Jot or A2?

  Now yes, originally no.  Also the PT comes with the PtoS where the S obviously does not.  In this case it turns out to be a P which had the modern cable but no PtoS.  Semi rare to be honest.  Both the P and PT are marked ER-4P on the split.  Hence why I said likely and not definitely.

  I don't see the PtoS converter cable but do see the modern cable so it is likely an S.

  Always use the lowest gain possible regardless of iem or headphone.  Higher noise floor is never beneficial ;)   Personally always use Comply one size up from what "seals".  So for me medium seals so I use large so that it seals really well even if I move around.  Once warm they exert...

They do not. The M11 has differential inputs so single ended or balanced in is balanced out.

  They don't.  The W60 is shall we say an acquired taste.  

  Would add that more costly doesn't always translate to more performance.  Many of my gains have come going down in cost.  Nothing quite as fun as getting an upgrade and putting money INTO the bank at the same time ;)

  One cable goes to the 4pin and then continues to the 1/4".  Any change in sound would be placebo.

Optional sure.  Replace as default no.  4ft is too short for mobile use, 6ft is ideal for home.  5ft is a good compromise if there is only one choice.

If the input was just right to get maximum power when the volume was at 100% and you increase gain... the maximum power will be reached before you get to 100% volume.  The advantage is if you have a lot of low output sources, classical, and a headphone that really needs all the power that the...

More the former than latter.  The default 16dB gain is already higher than the M11 can output if given 0dB content.  I.e. modern recorded music.  4x gain will cap out the M11.  The default is 6x.  6dB mod brings it to 12x.  Meaning 800mV input will cause it to clip.  The DAC outputs 2500mV at...

  Gain is a multiplication of signal strength.  6dB is 2x.  As a result noise is increased two fold.  Going the other way if you reduced the gain by 6dB then the noise would be cut in half.  Hence always use the least amount of gain needed for the wanted output.  Personally I very rarely need...

All true.  But OS does not reduce that number. PLL does as does upsampling where new timings are created.

Oversampling isn't related to jitter.  NOS is fine as long as the source is 88KHz or higher.  Otherwise you reflect back on the signal and have treble roll off.  Which is not to say some people don't like how that sounds.

Let's reel it in some gents.  The HeadRoom amps were just opamp/buffer amps.  The Blockhead has a better power supply than most of the line but still nothing special.  Not all that different than what you find in a Benchmark or Anedio all in one.  The module portion is the "amp".  

People say and or repeat a lot of things, most of which is a matter of opinion.  Until Inner Fidelity actually uses their measuring rig for some of these... we just don't know.  For example a lot of people jumped off the PS Audio PWD2 to the DSD but once Stereophile measured the DSD we knew that...

  Why are we assuming that it is technically superior?

If memory serves it has to be a USB2 slot and not a USB3 slot.  Also the DAC function isn't terribly useful for anything but music since it will run out of sync with video after a little while. Eve then it's a little annoying to start a song and not hear it for a few seconds or after pausing...

It would take an HDMI source like the PS Audio PWT, Audio-GD DI-2014 or EA Offramp.  Also kind of pointless since the included Amanero already connects to the Mac via USB and outputs I2S to the M11.  The Offramp might be a few ps better but R2R DACs aren't sensitive to jitter so.... yeah.

The most obvious comparison would be the LCD-3 with a touch more upper mids, lower treble and sub bass.  That said the armature drivers don't hit like a massive planar so the increased bass isn't over the top.  

  I also have my GS-Xmk2 for sale.  Does that make it no good too?  I've moved away from full sized open headphones to iems on a permanent basis and I wanted to free up some desktop real estate so... the PWD2 and GS-Xmk2 are leaving.  The Benchmark DAC2 is way smaller than those two and for...

  4x power, 2x gain.  Have to keep in mind that gain is voltage and power is that voltage times the current.  Which is utterly irrelevant if you only use 1mW ;)

  Which would still be wrong.  The GS-Xmk2 is not wasted on a single ended source.  It is however wasted on a poor source.

  Thanks to the "new shiny" that is the DS DAC prices for used PWD2 is peanuts making it a no brainer.

All balanced systems whether dac to amp, amp to speaker amp... is always male to female.  The balanced headphone cable is male.  The NuWave DSD is not good.  The PWD2 is really the one and only great dac PS Audio has made that competes favourably with dacs in the same street price range.