Hi, I will be going to college soon and will be sharing my dorm room with roommates. Thus, I will not be able to bring my Audeze LCD-Xs with me as they are open backs. Instead, I have picked up the Focal Celestee. I am in the market for either a combo unit (such as an ifi iDSD) or a small stack (such as magnius and modius). Ideally they would also be quite small as my desk space is very limited. My budget is up to $500.
Thanks, Uni
Hello there i personally would not say the magnius and modius are smaller units the magni and modi are the smallest stack that schiit makes which would work for you you will just not have balanced output
i am currently using the ifi zen dac running 4.4 pentaconn balanced while i wait for my magnius and modius to eventually arrive. it is pretty compact and will do everything you want it to do i’m just not sure if it will output enough power for those headphones which is not a bad thing just means there will be room to grow and you won’t be able to use your headphones to their full potential.
that is my 2 cents hope this helped
The modius/magnius does seem to look quite big in comparison. I’m leaning towards a magni 3+ and modi multibit which should make for a good combo for the next 3 years.
Yeah, the Magnius/Modius stack has the same footprint as the Bifrost and Jotunheim, they’re just shorter. Schiit is also having trouble getting/keeping the parts for both in stock. I placed an order for them at the end of January and the latest update on it was April 22nd and 26th for them, but those were the 4th or 5th change in date I had received.
The Magni/Modi is definitely smaller and it’s also in stock so you should be able to get it.
If an AIO is critical how about something like this:
You can do much better per $ getting separates.
Just curious why you would get the above recommendations rather than say a Fiio K5 which costs $150 and can, I believe, also power these headphones? I haven’t tried any of these, I genuinely want to know what the advantage of a $400+ stack is over a $150 combo?
I wasn’t aware of the Fiio K5 as I haven’t really been following their amp/dac offerings. Thus, I can’t really comment on their quality. Perhaps the modi multibit isn’t worth the $150 price premium over the modi 3+.
Hello there with a stack you can usually get a more powerful amp compared to an all in one also better upgrade paths with a stack as opposed to an all in one then there is the separate power supplies for each unit of the stack. And since the units are separate better RFI shielding. All in ones save more space and my have a better appearance. Hope this helped
Thanks for the advice everyone, I have decided to go with a magni and modi 3+ stack
Don’t those run well basically out of anything? Pretty sure even a dongle like a tempotec sonata would power them, magnius seems overkill af
take a look at the iFi Zen CAN stack…or perhaps their micro iDSD. 
Going to second the micro on this… celeste isn’t all that picky and is focals new portable headphone… the ifi do extremely well for focal in my opinion just not so much on clears
This one? I can also see a ‘‘black label’’ and ‘‘signature’’ one too
we’d be talking about the Black Label…unless you have the budget for the Signature.
yh, just had a look at the price of the signature and I would rather skip that since this is more of a temporary setup. Is the BL worth the extra $400 over the schiit stack though?
take a look in the used market…some good savings to be had there.
An excellent desktop stack with a very small form factor is the Topping D50S and A50S. This pair would be right at the top of your budget, but is one that will drive virtually any headphone. Topping makes very good quality gear and the sound quality is excellent.
Another portable option that might meet your needs is a USB dongle. The Luxury & Precision W2 is an amazing sounding DAC/Amp. You could use it with a computer or your smartphone. For a college student living in a dorm room this solution would be the most flexible and space efficient. You could take it to the Library and use your Focal’s while you study. The W2 can easily drive the Celestee and the sound quality is outstanding. I highly recommend this one 
. Check it out!