rice guru

To play off of this for the 990 I would reccomend the magni over the heretic if you go this route. The 990 due to it being sharp sounds even sharper on op amp based amps I know the differences between the heretic and magni are subtle it's genuinely enough to avoid going with a heretic imo. Good Discrete power just sounds better on beyers.

Sony sscs5 is great I would also recommend the micca rb 42. I daily drive these speaker for the deal really powerful for their size and due to how good and compact they are I never felt the need to upgrade. 

You could just get the magni+ or Heretic for now, not both.  You would want to also add a DAC some day like the Modi.  Heretic is a different design, I honestly couldn't tell you what makes it different other than some people prefer the sound as I think it's supposed to be a little warmer?  The magni+ is going to be a little brighter.  I would google or youtube it to find out the difference, it's been a long time since I've been in the know about the two products.
 
Tube's would be an add on for special listening sessions, something to consider down the road.
 
The schiit stack will have drastically more power than the Qudelix, it's just not possible for something powered by USB to compare to something with an AC outlet.  The Qudelix, while I'm not familiar at all with it, is more for easier to drive headphones and/or portability.  The Qudelix website doesn't offer specs that I can see so it's difficult to say for sure.
 
The Schiit stack is an end game solution to drive just about anything for the majority of people, and it's done with clarity.

I would go for this.
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/beyerdynamic-tygr-300-r-headphones/16229992
Hard to reccomend a mic at the remaining budget 
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/razer-seiren-mini-ultra-compact-usb-condenser-microphone-mercury/15428626?cmp=knc-s-71700000061237381&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAlcyuBhBnEiwAOGZ2Sx8WIv8dpCGDn3V7admFeK-YzqWQwZ7pO26mfVHiqFqQE2OFzb9VhBoC9S8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
But this exists and is not bad I would just use a stand with it which brings you over budget. And if your willing to get a stand and go even more over budget. This is better for the use case 
Audio-Technica 20 SERIES AT2005USB Cardioid Dynamic Microphone https://a.co/d/6H1BVkg

I feel this so hard. Currently my daily driver is my pair of audio quest nighthawk carbons a notoriously flawed sounding pair of headphones. But I use it daily anyway regardless of flaws bauces it's original price was able to afford it the ability of being super damn comfortable. It also helps this is such a unique sounding headphone aiming for that speaker in an over dampened room sound which is super relaxing and refreshing vs my beyers who like to shout detail at me. 

I would recommend getting some replacement cable like this one https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Braided-Shielded-Compatible-Headphones/dp/B0B1242RVW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=29JX8Y90WFID4&keywords=ugreen%2B3.5mm%2Baux%2B3%2Bpole&qid=1708211517&sprefix=ugreen%2B3.5mm%2Baux%2Bpole%2Caps%2C405&sr=8-2&th=1
 
 

+1 on the Maxwell these are the best sounding wireless headphones imo ATM. They sound solid.  While not as good as a cheaper wired solution this is definitely a hifi set of cans

If you have a higher budget. Get the Audeze Maxwell. Also definitely look up reviews on them!

the tyygr is a retuned 990 32 ohm the treble is around where the 880 sits. the mid bass is calmed down and overall is just a more balanced sounding beyer with some fun where the 880 can sound flat and boring its like a nice middle ground between the 990 and 880. it's also 32 ohm so its easy to run off a modern motherboard. you also get that nice benefit of staging that beyers in this price range excel at

For your needs if your just gaming I would stick to just getting the tygr no bundle. And get a good cheap dynamic mic with an arm like a Samson q2u. The dt 900 is good but not that much better than the tygr specifically for gaming. For general sound quality it's definitely better but 100 euros more? Debatable 

The only issue with DC wireless charging is that its very inefficient. Uses up to around 50% more power than using a cord

While it's not that great sounding compared to even other wireless options like the Maxwell the Astro a50 wireless + base station come with  some sort of charging base when your not using it.  I do wonder if there is some sort of issues presented with wireless charging. Maybe some sort of issue generated by the wireless energy transfer as to why we don't see it more often. But wireless headsets have only started sounding decent pretty recently so stuffing more and more features is expensive. Im just surprised we don't see more of the base station solutions. But personally my favorite solutions is howsteel series artist does it by providing removable rechargeable batteries allowing for better continuous gameplay and ensuring device longevity to an extent vs non removable batteries that will just die eventually 

I'm a bit late to this thread. I've run blind tests  for myself. Using my liquid spark DAC and Asgard 3 off my PC as a source and a friend to run it for me and note down we both agreed to use his pair of HD 800s. We ran 20 songs we were very familiar with and did 3 runs. Going into this I already knew I wasn't super sensitive to this already but wanted to do a more comprehensive test than before I was correct 8 out the 20 times on our first run , 11 out of 20 time on our second time, and 7 out of 20 time on my third run. My friend who definitely has better hearing than me (he's younger and both have gotten our ears tested fairly recently) barely did better. He got 10 out of right first run , 12 second run and 10 again third run. This was of course using Spotify premium and Tidal all music used was downloaded and settings were set to highest possible quality. We were both consistently guessing the majority of songs correctly when at the lowest quality settings for Spotify vs flac on tidal though. I will admit this testing method was probably flawed and I could have used my more expensive DAC but I wanted the sound to be as neutral as possible for the setup that I had regardless I think was good enough for me to come to the conclusion the Spotify premium is good enough for me.
 

I'm a bit late to this thread. I've run blind tests  for myself. Using my liquid spark DAC and Asgard 3 off my PC as a source and a friend to run it for me and note down we both agreed to use his pair of HD 800s. We ran 20 songs we were very familiar with and did 3 runs. Going into this I already knew I wasn't super sensitive to this already but wanted to do a more comprehensive test than before I was correct 8 out the 20 times on our first run , 11 out of 20 time on our second time, and 7 out of 20 time on my third run. My friend who definitely has better hearing than me (he's younger and both have gotten our ears tested fairly recently) barely did better. He got 10 out of right first run , 12 second run and 10 again third run. This was of course using Spotify premium and Tidal all music used was downloaded and settings were set to highest possible quality. We were both consistently guessing the majority of songs correctly when at the lowest quality settings for Spotify vs flac on tidal though. I will admit this testing method was probably flawed and I could have used my more expensive DAC but I wanted the sound to be as neutral as possible for the setup that I had regardless I think was good enough for me to come to the conclusion the Spotify premium is good enough for me.
 

There is a very small difference between the two, but that's not why I use Tidal, I use it because they give the highest percentage per song played to the creators.  If there is a perceivable difference it is so small that most wouldn't be able to tell.  I know that I haven't A/B tested it and something like removing the noise from my fishtank would make a bigger impact than going to FLAC.  Also I don't pay for the highest tier, again it's just a philosophy that sold me on the service.

The first questions one must ask when contemplating this is really does my current gear make noise? And is it loud enough. If you are hearing audible noise like static that isn't supposed to be there or something that sounds like coil whine then getting a external DAC may be a good idea.
Is it loud enough?if your headphones sound quite when cranked then maybe an amp is needed. The thing is all of that is already built in to your motherboard , and in this case your keyboard. An DAC is not functional without an amp and anything that can convert digital to analogue is a DAC.
Do my headphones sound correct? This is a hard one to explain. Headphones have sound signatures you may have seen charts with wavy lines called frequency response charts. Those are measurements letting us know what a machine hears and what we are expected to hear telling us how a headphone sounds in respect to each frequency. It tells you what it likes to put forward , and what it likes to hold back on. It can tell you if it's bass heavy or likes to show off mids more. There is a lot to this and I can go into higher detail but basically there are signs of underpowered headphones beyond just volume. If the bass sounds thinner than it should if the treble seems piercing and uncontrolled if there is just a lack of what the headphones are supposed to sound like there is potential for you to need a bigger amp or more likely your headphones are defective. 
upgrade headphones and find volume , noise , or it not sounding how its supposed to . But mainly focus on volume and noise. In your case if it sounds clean I wouldn't bother getting a amp/DAC. 

xm5 has battery issues right now where they can potentially blow yup in your ears i would not trust any sony TWS at the moment until it's fixed and the next model comes out. i know the title say xm4 but this extends to the xm5 as well.
 

Wasn't convinced to get a steam deck until the OLED came out 

Wasn't convinced to get a steam deck until the OLED came out 

Packed like a glove

Would love to know what 4-8th dimensions sound like

Getting into the spooky season 
https://youtu.be/2qrtxj5Kc2Y?si=o_G21X5zsS4WDLTr

Packed like a glove

Packed like a glove

Packed like a glove