EnsoZero

I recently sold my RX 480 and honestly it was pretty difficult to find any equivalent GPU, new or used, at a decent price in the $180-400USD range. When the 480/580 supply started drying up the miners just started gutting both the primary and secondary market of almost everything in that range. GTX 980 Ti and 1070 models were the first to really dry up because of folks selling their GPUs and buying into those, then miners started grabbing them, then 1060 6GB models, then 980s, then 970s and now you can't even find 1060 3GB cards. This is just a terrible time to get a GPU below the 1080. Be patient. GPU manufacturers will match market demand to the best of their abilities but they have to be cautious to avoid a market crash leaving them with tons of unsold cards, hopefully we'll see stock improving in the next month or two and once the price on the 480 and 580 come down the market will settle back into more intended pricing.

While I agree to avoid the M series with some exceptions, there are some critical flaws in this. They don't all sound the same, they have different sound signatures from the top to the bottom because of construction differences, even though many of them use the same drivers. The M40/M40X for example is fairly neutral, while the M50 is very much so not. Also the DT770 isn't exactly neutral either and has a massive treble spike that can fatigue most people under the age of 40, especially if they are treble-sensitive.

To quantify and avoid confusion, by a few I meant 1-3db. It's possible there were some issues with the build of the unit but I didn't have another to compare it against.

When tested with both the O2 and Magni amps the Modi had some coloration in the treble (it seemed a few db higher), it was more evident on my HD600s than my other cans but it was there. This confirmed by veni_vidi_vale on Reddit, and he's significantly more reputable with this equipment than either of us are. As for the O2 and Magni it was basically a tradeoff of the O2 being cleaner with less distortion and less noise at higher power output, but the Magni has more power. Either way it's a personal choice and I went with the cleanest possible output.

So you're asking questions to which you don't care about the answer to, just to make yourself feel superior to someone else. Let me ask you, do you have experience with these units?

I already gave my impressions, and I'm done with your games.

It was the Magni2/Modi2, this was within the last month.

I had both for nearly a month and sold the Schiit stack to a friend.

The amps are pretty close with an edge to the O2 for lower noise and distortion, but the ODAC is more transparent than the Modi and the only reason to choose the Modi over the ODAC before was price.

The O2/ODAC is about the best DAC/amp setup you can get for a reasonable amount of money already, at $200 it's really unrivaled.

If you want the absolute best board for audio, the Asus Maximus VIII Hero/Ranger has a phenomenal audio implementation that has legitimate DAC and AMP chipsets. They onboard is better than any sub $200 DAC/AMP combination I can think of.

You can get a Schiit stack for $200 as long as you don't require the features of the Uber versions.

But why pay $50 more for a near inaudible difference in sound quality?

I was speaking of the specific frequency responses and where they begin to fall below average SPL, which correlates with sound characteristic. Back to the original point, the bass response on the 9500 and 612 are near identical, and it shouldn't be a determining factor in purchase.

Even the HD600 does the same thing. Honestly it's just kind of normal for neutral or slightly warm open headphones with dynamic drivers to roll off in that range.