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I have no doubt this device serves a purpose, it just has an unfortunate name. Am I the only one seeing it?

What is this?

A Schiit eitr? Seriously??

Love it! Thanks for the background.

Hear hear.. always the voice of reason.. Seems like you're one of the good guys. I have no background surrounding your avatar, but it does seem fitting after reading a lot of your "everybody, calm down now" posts.    It's easy to become closed minded on a topic regardless of which end of the...

Just SchiitStirring folks, as you were..   

^^ What that guy said.      Apologies for coming across as rude, intrusive or obnoxious.. etc. ahem. But, exactly how many thousands of dollars do you suggest one ought spend on a headphone rig so that these day/night - clear/rusty audible differences in those cables become apparent to...

I don't know, I'm pretty sure the clear spring water is going to sound exactly the same as the rusty water going through those pipes. No?

Which sound better to you?

I think 'synergy' is the buzzword you're looking for. Neither of those amps would be underpowered for your speakers so I think it's just a matter of complementary and non-complementary sound signatures. Evidently the Sherwood has better synergy with your speakers. I believe that each amp design...

^ What he said.

Q701s were never really known for their fantastic bass response whereas the DT990 has a V-shaped frequency response and would put out a good amount of bass with adequate power. I wouldn't blame the DAC/amp. If you want more bass I would ditch the 701s and get an HD650 which would complement your...

They're both very sensitive headphones and probably don't need any more power. But if you really want a new amp I would go with the E12A (which actually puts 30mW less into a 16 ohm load than the E11K) which was designed for iems and high sensitivity headphones. The E12 has a lot more gain and...

Don't know about the e10K but when I had an E17 it's line out produced just as much noise as the headphone out of my PC. Although it's strange that music is fine but games are not. Do your speakers hum in all games or just one? Try adjusting in game volume first. Have you tried connecting the...

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As a generalisation this hobby does not encourage critical thinking. If the original post was shared with all new HeadFi members I think a lot of time and money could be saved. Time to listen to more music and money to buy more music.

Yep, start with what you have and you may be satisfied with the sound quality. I had a pair of 701s a while back and I do remember they needed more of the volume dial than most of the other headphones I had tried. If you're using more than 50% of the volume on your amp then the additional power...

Start with the amp that you think will have enough power for your needs and listen to that connected directly to your mac mini for a while. If you notice that there is a high noise floor or not enough volume then an external DAC may bring an improvement. I added a dedicated DAC to my setup...

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The V-MODA M80 might be worth a look. For $230 you can get the headphones with a boom mic.