Well, I ordered the Crack- waiting ever so patiently. I'll be using HD600's with it. I am impressed by the forum.
when soldering I always try to use, if space permits, a Hemostat as a heat sink. I hope not to fry anything. I hate soldering IC's so what I always do these days is use IC sockets, solder those in place, and then just plug in the IC. No more fried ICs. No ICs in the Crack- yeah! I am looking for a DAC- will consider the EE.
At some point down the road I might get the speedball. Who knows.
I'm looking forward to this build as I have been itching for a DIY project for a while. My last project was repair a Sony XBR TV that died n 2013. I refused to accept its death, and with the aid of Google I learned this was a familiar issue with my particular model. $20 or so in parts later, TV is back up and running (2 components on the power supply board failed)