[ShiroKen]

Hi guys.  Long story short, I'm finding my way into high(er) end audio.  I recently treated myself to some AKG K701 and I love them.  I had been advised from the start when I was looking into these that I would need a decent headphone amp.  After some reading I decided that the Matrix M-Stage is my best bet.
 
I also wanted a standalone USB DAC that I intended to hook up to the M-Stage.  My budget is flexible, but I intended to spend around £200 on the amp and £100+ on the DAC.  However, I notice that the Mini i DAC has an integrated headphone amp.
 
Would this be high quality enough to make the M-Stage redundant, or is it still a worthwhile investment to get the M-Stage anyway?
 
Also I'm not sure what kind of money buys a good DAC.  I gather that the M-Stage amp is a clone of the Lehman, and for the price it's a bargain; but how much would I be expected to spend to get a DAC of similar quality?  I don't want to end up with mismatched components, ie a crappy DAC and an amazing amp, or vice versa.
 
Also if anyone could recommend some quality prebuild RCA cables it would be much appreciated.  Again, I'm not sure what kind of money you would be expected to spend to get cables in line with the sound quality of the amp/DAC.
 
My other option might be a Mavrick Audio D1.  I like the idea of being able to change the opamps, but is the unit a bit low end/mismatched compared to the M-Stage?
 
Much thanks.

 

[soulrider4ever]

as a previous owner of the mini-i, I would say the balanced outputs are the only ones that are 'good enough' for the price, although the headphone out was very nice.  The unbalanced out is noticeably of lesser SQ than the balanced out.  I will say that I enjoyed the mini-i over the xda-1 and a few other dacs, just not the anedio d1 dac.

 

[palchiu]

It's good from factory, but better after little mod.

 

[j0lly]

How much better? Does the mods lift it up to the performance of more expensive dacs?

 

[LeeC]

Just got my HD650 and found it's working very well with Matrix mini-i.

 

[steveotron]

Have you tried using the built-in amp? If so, how does it compare to the Asgard?
 
Quote:

Just got my HD650 and found it's working very well with Matrix mini-i.