vertix

also comes with deafening treble and garbage fr response compared to 553 and sine! get it now

AKG K550/553 or Audeze Sine Closed

HD 6X0 wins in comfort for sure. HD 600 is a bit bright and the 650 are a little dark, both really good and have pretty much the same chassis, comfort, etc. IMO the 650 or 600 would be great for you. Anyhow, Drop has the 6XX (pretty much just a 650) for $220 brand new.

Sound cards in general are pretty bad. It's all software and crap. The DAC's and Amp's in there are almost no better than today's onboard.

Definitely.

this is heresy

I wouldn't recommend as you might get some EMI or noise, but you can just use optical and feed it power through the power supply.

It has a built-in preamp, you're good.

Yeah, you can do that or use USB. You'll have to give it external power though.

Definitely! Though, I'd suggest getting the JDS Atom and pair that with Modi 3 instead as it offers cleaner amplification, but with slightly less power.

Not sure about that one, but it should be alright.

Objective 2 is pretty outdated now. SDAC is pretty good and I'd say better than most DAC's out there, so get the Atom with the Schiit Modi 3 or SDAC, as either of those two will do much better than the OL DAC. As for powering, any of those will work.

It's made to work with 120v, get a voltage transformer.

Extremely. M40x's are much better and cheaper. Anyway, Creative Aurvana Live are pretty great for the price, and are much better than the entire M00x series in terms of sound quality. Build quality, though, is meh

The E10K is not much better than an old laptop's onboard audio. That's why I'm telling you not to get it. it's simply not worth the money.

I'll be honest here. I think you're better off not getting the E10K and just putting more budget into the headphones.

Try Aliexpress for the DAC X6 then

Paying the extra $50 for the 6XX is worth it by all means, much better than 58X. Anyway, if you really want the Beyer's then get the 880's instead.

DT 880's are much better than the 990's by a long shot and trust me, just because they're audiophile headphones doesn't mean you can't game on them. They're much better than a gaming headset is for gaming infact. Anyway, the Fosi Audio DAC X6 is also a much better choice than the E10K, and no, it's not unusual to be paying as much as your headphones or even more on the amps or DAC's. P.S you can download HeSuVi and it has all that "surround sound" stuff on it.

Don't listen to Zeos, he's deaf, and everyone who actually knows about audio agrees. Don't even think of getting the 990, It's treble earrape. Get the 880 Instead if you want a more fun sound and get the 6XX if you want a nice laidback listening experience. Oh, and don't even bother with an amp, they do benefit from one but can get loud enough and sound great with or without one. P.S don't listen to them about that "veil" stuff, It's just a big meme.

Creative Aurvana Live are $60 and sound magnificent. A little bassy and build is not that great, but are so worth it. If you can afford these then I couldn't recommend them more if you were going for closed back. AKG K550/553, DT 770, Audeze Sine (closed variant) and Creative Aurvana Live. These are the absolute best you can get under $500. Now, if you want a cheap microphone that sounds good, then the Samson Go might be right for you, they're really good for the price. Here's a great little video on them.

This is not true. Not in the least. If you've tried some legitimate High-End DAC's then I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be saying that right now. I've tried the V20 with the Quad Dac at a showroom before and I gotta say, I was impressed, but they are nowhere near the best.

They're absolutely worth the money if you could afford it though. Used one's go for much less at around 140 to 200

Please don't get any of those. If you want cheap, really good sound that you can take out with you, then the Koss KSC75's would be a great choice. There's also the Creative Aurvana Live which are much better than every headphone listed above sound-wise. (M1060's included) Now-now, if you want IEM's there are a bunch of good one's to pick from. Here are some that I know of BGVP DMG, Tin Audio T2 and Vsonic GR07. Here's a ranking list you might like and find useful for picking out IEM's. If you'd like, I could recommend some more headphones if you could give me your exact budget.