I am still looking around for a tube amp or DAC. I found some hype revolving around Musical Paradise and I see that it can double up for both headphones and my stereo setup.
Anyone have experience with this or a similar line?
I was originally looking at Xduoo for headphone amps or dacs, but this seems to be a 2 for 1 for me, although it’s a DAC only.
Thoughts? Good value?
Thanks for your feedback!
I’ve heard the original mp-d1 and it’s pretty great. The mk3 looks pretty dang nice for the price, but it would be more then the xduoo, but it looks pretty great. You could possibly get a jds labs atom as a headphone amp with it
M0N to the rescue, thanks for the feedback.
I have a Grace SDAC/Amp, although I don’t know how to do a passthrough. Does it depend on the order that I plug it in? Source --> DAC turned off --> Amp turned on?
Also, how does one plug in this DAC to an AVR? Is it possible?
If you are talking about the o2+sdac there is no way to feed it with an analog source, so you would not be able to use this dac unless you bought a headphone amp with an analog line in.
You would connect this dac into a cd or other line level input on your avr and connect the fixed outs on the back of the d1 mk3
In theory, if my AVR has a headphone out, I am still also good to go? Source to this DAC to AVR (headphone out)?
Do I have to worry about the AVR’s DAC messing up with this DAC?
So you shouldn’t have any issues with the avr dac interfering with this dac, but the headphone out on your receiver is most likely subpar at best, because most manufactures don’t really put much care into them
I can see how this hobby gets expensive 
Lol yeah, I somewhat recently splurged on a tube amp recently and it adds up along with the other stuff. But you can put together a great system for not alot now
Would you say getting the MP-D1 is better value compared to getting an Xduoo TA-20 because I can potentially use it for both my stereo setup and headphones?
I currently already have Grace SDAC and TA-01b, so TA-20 would only upgrade my headphone setup only.
On a side note… I won’t be able to experiment with balanced anymore if I get the MP-D1, lol
I would say no because you are getting a better amp with the ta-10 or ta-20 which imo would make a bigger sound difference
Balanced isn’t super necessary unless you need more power or have very long cable runs imo
Any other products on the top of your head that can help improve both stereo + headphone setups for warmth?
I only have Onkyo TN686 AVR for stereo/home theater and SDAC + TA-01b for my headphone setup. Both are using Amazon HD for streaming.
Thanks again for your continued feedback – this hobby can also get pretty overwhelming with the amount of choices
@M0N
So after some reading, I ended up buying the Musical Paradise MP-301 Mk3 (2018 edition). There seems to be quite a bit of positive buzz with it and I can use it with both stereo and headphones.
I hope it does me well, /crosses fingers.
Nice, hope you like it 
Thanks again for your help even though my head is spinning now looking up info on 4-6 different products, lol
Yeah, there’s a crap ton to explore. You end up as someone like me when you can’t settle for a few lol