After giving this a few days of listening, I can say pretty confidently that this is an end-game DAC.
When I first got into the headphone scene, my sound card was a Sound Blaster Audigy 2. I thought it was a fantastic card, and I guess relative to on-board audio it was. After years of using it, on a whim, I decided to upgrade to the Schiit Modi, and felt like I got pretty huge gains. I didn't think I'd ever buy another sound card again. Then after a couple years of using that, it crapped out, and the Sound BlasterX AE-5 caught my attention. I figured since 99% of my listening was done on my computer, it was a worthwhile investment. Being that I couldn't A/B it with the Modi, I couldn't say definitively that it was better, but I was pretty confident it was in the same ballpark at least.
But then I get that voice whispering in my ear "A lot of reviews say this card doesn't sound very good. The DAC chip sucks in it. You're not getting the best sound you can get." Then my noisy A20 starts really taking its toll on me. I need a quieter solid state amp so that I can power my harder to drive low impedance headphones. It basically created a perfect storm of "You need to buy an AMP/DAC".
And so here I am now. With each upgrade to my source I felt the biggest improvement was treble control. Extension gets a little better, and fine detail up at the very top of the spectrum gets a little better. This better treble control seems to have a knock-on effect of improved soundstage and imaging. Headphones I've used extensively before get that little extra soundstage that I hadn't heard. The soundstage doesn't get dramatically better, it's just all those refinements to that upper end combine to really draw your attention to it. Tonally, I don't hear anything accentuated or drawn back, which is good, and really what I expected. It lets me send a clean, uncolored signal to my WA2 to let IT do the coloring.
The amp section is also very impressive. It can power anything I throw at it. The DT1770s are fairly easy to drive, so I didn't expect much challenge there, but other headphones like the K612s were pretty much effortless on this thing. I'm confident that should I buy some planar magnetics, this will have no problem powering them.
Inputs and outputs: this thing kills it. Coax, 2 optical, Aux, USB, fixed RCA out, variable RCA out, it's really got it all. My only very minor gripe, is I wish it had two fixed RCA outs. I'm using this through USB, fed from my computer. It's funny: my motherboard actually has USB ports specifically designed for USB DACs. I'm feeding the sound out of this through the fixed RCAs to my WA2, and the variable RCAs go to my Koss ESP950s. I never have to touch the damned volume knobs on that again!
The build on this is just beautiful. I kind of wish I could've gotten the silver version, just to match my WA2, but I still like the black. It's really heavy for such a tiny little box. I think just over 10 pounds? It just gives it that premium feel. The headphone jack is another detail I absolutely love. It has a really soft grip, so pushing and pulling the plug won't cause the unit to move around. Despite the WA2 being heavier, it still does this. And it might be because I'm a simpleton, but I absolutely love how using the remote physically turns the volume knob.
The power and source sections of my little setup feel like they're properly end-game. For maybe the first time since getting into this hobby, I feel like I'm done spending money here. There's more headphones to try, for sure, but I no longer feel I'm feeding potentially poor quality into the headphones.
