I am waiting on a Denafrips DDS ires and a Denafrips Ares 12-1. The terminator would be awesome though along with the clocking. If I ever move to wanting full size speakers and I can afford that in the future.That's possible, as, with SPDIF, clock generator in the streamer dictates the timing of the digital output, whilst for USB, the DAC will rely on DAC's internal clock. As your unit is A6ME, I think clock inside should be superior to those in the EF499.
In my case, with the DDC and Terminator Plus DAC, that equip with far superior clock than the A6ME, using USB yields better result.
However for now I am using a Modi mb2 with coaxial in and once my brain adjusted to the modi or I broke in the mb2 a little if I move to the small po100 pro with usb and spdif coax out to the MB2 or to the ef499 it sounds super flat. The mb2 with the ever stream a6 master on spif is pretty good.
Do you think the denafrips will improve the sound using usb to the ddc (via A6Mme) and i2s to the ares 12-1? Going to also use the spdif coax to the modi.
On the balanced out of the ARES 12-1 it will feed to a schiit Midgard (I know the Midgard is not true balanced) and the modi will feed the Nitche Maximus.
This way I can have one of the kids or someone else listen to the same thing I am.
I am always all over the place I will sell things later for a loss of course but I am wanting to keep the denafrips, a6, and the Nitsch Maximus.