+Might allow me to turn Origain's knob higher to prevent imbalance at lower levels Headphone amp with lineout, put it in between my dac and speaker amp still might not be as good as the dacmagic

+newer DAC would allow me to natively enjoy my 24/96 flac, or even DSD

dac/headphone amp connected to pc via usb.

So I wonder if a pre-amp with volume control could help optimize that better? To use the Dac magic, I'd need a headphone amp with line outs anyway. The Origain is cool but I think it starts to get channel imbalance when knob gets below 25%, which is usually where I keep it. Anyways I can tell a slight edge and prefer it over the built-in DAC on the Origain, even though that does 24/96 over usb (and I have close to 100gb of 24/96 flac music.).

It also has balanced xlr input/output which I have no use for.

The DAC magic is an older usb 1.0 model that only does 16/48, but apparently has high-end technology that upscales everything to 24/96 (or higher I iirc). I have a bunch of chifi IEMs, and a couple low (~32 ohm) impedence headphones for now, but am planning on buying something more demanding soon. This leaves no room for headphones, which I currently power off a cheap usb card that came with a gaming headset. Or should it be a headphone amp/dac? Or should I get a headphone amp that has preamp outs, to put inline with my speaker amp and DAC? Maybe a tube amp, as all I listen to is Grateful Dead recordings from the 60's-early 80's and think a tube might fit the character. Budget/used mid-fi here looking for a desktop headphone amp under $175.

Audioengine d1 dac spdif vs usb