I have a 2015 MacBook Pro that I primarily use as my mobile rig. It has USB and Thunderbolt 2 ports. I’m looking for an incredible sounding DAC that I’ll primarily use with headphones. Ideally, I don’t want to use a DAC that’s only bus powered. I used an apogee Duet 2 in the past, but I didn’t think it sounded particularly clear. I love the sound of the Dangerous Source, but it’s not as portable as I’d prefer. My hope is to learn about a hidden gem that was perhaps top tier years ago that can now be found as a great deal on the used market.

Any recommendations are appreciated!

Check out a used Chord Mojo.

Tons of power for Headphones, lovely sounding.

Very affordable.

For more money Grace m900.

Thanks for the reply! The Grace M900 looks epic, might have to save up for that.

The Chord Mojo looks interesting! I assume is probably on the same level as the Apogee Groove

To me the Chord is up there with my Prisms, Lavry etc.
YMMV.

Wow! That’s quite the endorsement.

E1DA 9038D - incredible performance / cost ratio

Use it to drive MM500/NDH30 here and replaced my OG Benchmark DAC1.

Well they pay me a lot of money to pimp their no longer available products on this forum (not!)

It is seriously good, the only reason I think it is not more popular in studio world is that it uses an FGPGA array and thus has some latency , not an issue for editing and mixing but tracking would be a bit poor.

Headphone amp is mentally loud with large Ohm cans.