I went with the Magni2U/Modi2U stack and have been thrilled - mind you, I've not done any comparisons or listened to these headphones through anything else yet, but I will say that it sounds utterly delightful this way. Better than any other set I've listened to elsewhere (Sennheiser HD650s thru...

  Yup! I use mine daily for much of the day at my desk job. Paired with a pair of Bowers & Wilkins C5 earbuds. I hear zero background noise (maybe my ears are going?) and find the sound much crisper and soundstage significantly wider than plugged directly in the to the MBP. Music is HQ...

Working on it... The headphone adapter I bought to try with my IEMs (Bowers and Wilkins C5s) was DOA (or at least I hope it was, as it otherwise means my Magni 2U is shot - but I got the same lack-of-mids on two separate 1/4" outputs from the same source material).   I've got the AKG K7xx...

Tony - while I agree with you on the one hand, I'd argue that they've plenty of price points already (Magni, Vali, Asgard, etc.), and further segmentation within individual price points isn't going to have any impact in THIS industry. When talking about cars, the average person buying a car will...

Placed an order for a Magni 2U and Modi 2U on December 19th - just got shipping notification! Huzzah! Too bad they'll probably come whilst I'm at CES... Oh well.   Just wanted to throw it out there as far as where they're at in their order fulfillment for the Modi 2 Ubers.

Similar situation as you - I just picked up the Magni 2U + Modi 2U, but a pair of the AKG 7xx headphones from Massdrop, instead of the HD650s. I do like the 650s, but from all the impressions I've read, the AKGs are effectively on-par if not better-than the Senns, and it would keep you under...

  Yes - the newer MBPs have higher-power USB ports, specifically due to the higher power demands of iOS devices. I'm not sure where the cutover happened, and I don't think it's all software, there were some hardware changes too.   MIGHT be worth an updated on your 2009 MBP to Yosemite, unless...