I was an Engineer for 38 years. Now I am an elderly cripple. I made many hit CD's through this box. It really ;lets us monitor with headphones. The Lavry,Apogee,Benchmark all fell short IMO. We always had to rally between Genelec nearfield monitors and DT770 Pro's. With this and better headphones such as the K872, mastering could fully be accomplished solely on headphones. The soundstage, placement, micing everything was exactly real. This new system made work much faster. What used to take me a week now took me 10-12 hours. It is a genuine tool. On page 1 of this a guy has a $129 tube amp. That can be fun. I guess it hits a bone with me because I took my job seriously. That one was not for pleasure. It easily could be though. I cannot even see hooking it up to the WA33 Elite JPS. Now that is talking though. I kind of wonder how it would sound through a cost no object amp. An Topping A90 or A30, even a Cavelli or IFI Pro will not do it justice IMO. That is all subjective. I personally would not sleep on the amp in there. That is a serious amp. It is not like an OPA1612 IC. It is a MOSFET current loopback design.
As for the LPS, I think luckily only very few people were interested in that with this. RME said not to do it. Just as Monoprice said not to subject the LP HPA to it. Then everyone cried when their LP died 2 day's later. RME, I would really listen to.
You can get generic Chinese DAC's for $400 with a Es9038AS and much better THD+N, better SNR ETC.
Made with junk components, slapped together, nonexistent quality control, one unit does not sound or measure like the next. Made in a factory with a dirt floor in China.
Or the RME is made to exacting, precise standards in cleanroom environments by highly skilled Engineers and fabricators in Germany.
Especially for dynamic drivers this is the case.
