Not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination so I won't go into detail about sound stage, brightness etc., but man does this thing make my headphones sound even more amazing. I bought the Q701s and was always told that they don't need amplification with either my newish Macbook Air or Sony Xperia. That is a pile of crap because I could set both devices at full volume and neither was quite loud enough and I'm not a 16 year old trying to blow my eardrums. Hooked this up and a completely different story. All I can say is that it is well worth the spend if you have a similar setup to mine. No issues with drivers, plug & play all the way.