Next I tried the Audinst as DAC with the M-Stage as amp. This was the best yet, and I can safely conclude that the mx1 is a better DAC than the Gamma1, and the M-Stage is clearly a better amp than the mx1. This explains what I was hearing before; the mx1 DAC providing better resolution but the M-Stage driving the signal better. When you combine the 2 of them, you have a combo that is very hard to beat. The power is there, the control, the resolution, the micro-dynamics as well as the tiny details being presented very clearly. There is a great tonal density and very accurate timbre, and it just feels like you are listening to performers in the room with you rather than a recording. This was especially evident when playing the high resolution tracks with the better headphones, LiveWires and K702 being my favorites of this bunch. Even an album like “The Slip” by Nine Inch Nails, which doesn’t initially come across as being audiophile fodder, sounds startlingly real on some tracks. There is a point on one track in which Trent Reznor’s voice seems to come at you from the extreme side of your room. It is possibly one of the best examples of “outside the speaker (or headphone in this case)” realness I have ever heard, and it is coming from a lowly $430 setup. Of course the great recording in high resolution deserves most of the credit, but still.