Hi!
Just to share my experience.
I have the Power Dac 2.1
Unbalanced mode works like a charm.
Unbalanced boost, I do not like it, weird crossfeed effect.
There is no IEM mode, it's a shame.
I have some hiss with every headphones and IEM I have, but it's not that a problem. Tried different type B cables, different headphones cables, balanced and unbalanced.
On my phone I use hiby music player with only hardware control, so I do not have to use the app, this is perfect.
On windows it seems I do not have the choice, I have to use the app or put the system volume at 100/100 and use only the volume control of Foobar, which is better than the system volume control. The problem is that I prefer mpv that I configure in wasapi exclusive mode. I did not find hardware volume control in mpv. So android is way ahead windows regarding sound management...
Anyway with this PD2.1 I feel that I stepped up a lot after the apple dongle and the chord Mojo, which is a very very good thing !!