A true head-fiers dream. - SP1000 Copper fully balanced - Mass Kobo 404A fully balanced - Brimar Audio Grand Master 8 Braid balanced - Brimar Omni King 16 Braid mini single ended - Brimar Kaiser 8 Braid balanced - Campfire Audio Vega with Dynamic Drivers You wanna know about the sound quality? One word only: Heavenly!
Im sure your incoming Phantom clearly illustrates how true the saying "when one door closes, another opens". Coupled with the fact that im pretty sure your AK70 will pair well/great with it! Cheers buddy!
Try running balanced from the XLR output instead. The 2.5mm on the 404A is known to be the bottleneck for the amp and sounds worse than the 3.5mm single ended output.
Sorry to drag things off-topic but do you find performance is improved by running 2.5 and 3.5mm interconnects at the same time haiku?