Hey,

Took forever to respond, but thanks for the nice answer!

I agree with basically what you say.

Check several sources, don't blindly trust others over your own experiences etc is my approach. I have not really been looking too much at reviews. I am very happy with my gear so far, and I have been lucky enough to listen to some very high end stuff both at show rooms and privately.

Right now I got two stereos, and one of them also is for headphones. The stereo in the living room has a audible hum from the amp. It is sort of annoying me, but for the living room it is fine as the sound is incredible (Hegel H200). It's an old amp I bought used, and it has done what I ask of it with no problem on the three sets of speakers I tried it with.

The other amp I got is a DIY I bought used with a ICE 1200as2. It is not "that" good in measurements compared to some other amps, nyt it has way more power than I need and to me it sounds very good. Also I am lucky to have no noise (need to put my ear right next to it to hear the slightest hum).

I do have a Topping DX7 Pro and I think it is nice because it allows me to use headphones, connect power amp with XLR and a subwoofer with RCA. Easy to switch between those and easy to switch source from USB to optical. I had other headphone amps and DACs before, and I got this for the DAC functionality and decent enough amp