If it’s a pure DAC, it’s default output will likely be between 1 to 2 Volts RMS. If your listening on iems or ~30 Ohm headphones that is gonna be crazy loud. It seems like you are using digital audio control to manage this (i.e., the audio level in your DE), which is possible, but certainly not ideal. It also is kinda bad for the audio quality, as you are digitally remixing it, and if you ever switch to high impedance headphones (or already have), the output current will be sub-ideal.

If I’m assessing your situation correctly, then this is quite easy to solve though. You just need a preamp! This will give a nice knob to control audio with much more precision and finesse. I know that both JDS Labs and Schiit Audio offer headphone amps with built in preamps in the USA. I can highly recommend the JDS Labs Atom Amp 2. In Europe your a little more limited, but FiiO has some nice options I think.

Of course none of this is necessary if you don’t want audiophile levels of quality, but it would boost the audio quality (presuming your DAC doesn’t have a proper preamp), and would certainly give you a tactile, wonderful knob.

I can certainly attest that my HD600s sound quite a bit better out of a JDS Labs Atom Amp 2 than out of just my DAC or—god forbid—my Mobo audio… They sound even better out of my vintage 100W Onkyo amp, of course, but really not by much. I am really impressed by the Atom Amp. I initially just bought it for travelling, but it has now basically become my main amp lol.

Okay, ramble over.

I had a 3060 Ti.

I couldn’t game on Wayland for about 20% of my games (very frustrating), couldn’t use specific Window Managers like Sway, experience constant screen tearing on X11 (which I often had to use, because the game would crash on Wayland) when gaming, and had a significant performance hit in some games.

CS:GO ran like a dream and actually better than on Windows, but with the release of CS2 my performance on Linux was about 20% worse than on Windows. My 1% lows were also crazy on Linux (median=190fps, %1=80fps). This meant, among others things, that I just couldn’t play death match anymore — my FPS would make it unplayable. This was largely an optimization issue and I think some of the 2025 Nvidia driver updates of improved the situation a little for CS2 specifically. The screen tearing on X and the buggyness on Wayland were enough for me to switch though, even if eventual improvements might come.

I am now extremely happy with my 7900 XT, which I got for less than any available 9070 XT (in my region) and which amusingly actually has better performance in CS2 then then the 9070 XT on Linux. It’s massively overkill though, I could have just as well gotten a 7800 XT or 9070 (non-XT).

I am still very, very pleased. Hopefully this will last me a few years, unlike the gosh darn 3060 Ti.

Alright, I’m done with my huge block of text. Hopefully this was helpful.

Literally the only social media I use (apart from signal, if that counts).

I’m pretty sure clap is completely cross platform, which is pretty cool. But the infamous VST is unfortunately not; you need to create separate Linux and Windows VSTs :(