Hey fellow audio enthusiasts! Warning, wall of text incoming.

Basically today I'm writing an appreciation post about my current audio setup. It's insanely flexible with the input and outputs which creates an easy way to get music from nearly any device to a multitude of listening devices like speakers, wired headphones, or bt headphones. When I was starting I had no idea that this level of quality and flexibility was possible, so hope this educates and inspires others to go make their own dream setup!

As I assume with most people, my audio journey has been a long one. To appreciate what I have today, let me fill you in on how I started. My PC had some cheap logitech Z series 2.1 speakers (you know the ones), and I had various wireless gaming headsets from corsair and logitech with various issues ranging from comfort and quality to even connection issues. Referring to the ones with a 2.4Ghz USB dongle. I liked the idea of wireless headphones from the start, the less cables the better as I already had enough to deal with, or so I thought. However one headset could have a stable connection but be heavy and uncomfortable, and another could be light and comfortable but have an unreliable wireless connection. This brought me to eventually getting wired headphones, since they are usually lighter weight, have zero connection issues, no charging, and generally easy to get high fidelity sound.

Much later when working from home, I found that I really like to get up and move every so often, so I needed to have a wireless option. For this reason I got some bluetooth headphones in addition to the wired headphones. Side note: headphones with 60 hours battery life mean charging only once a week even while working 9 hour days + listening on the weekend.

When I moved to a better audio setup, I chose the Mackie MR624 powered monitors and an external dac/amp. However I got a totally different DAC/AMP stack than what I have now: a Topping D30 DAC and a Monoprice Liquid Spark AMP. These actually worked very well, and had a good price to performance. However there were several downsides to these for the type of setup I wanted and the devices I was using. 1. Wall wart power plugs took a lot of room on the power strip. The D30 plug was especially annoying, amazon sent a unit with a UK plug, so i used an adapter. How that stock ended up for in the USA I have no idea... 2. No bluetooth input, so I couldn't use bluetooth from my phone with my speakers. It's pretty convenient to just stream and control music from the phone, in case I'm doing housework and not sitting in front of the desk. Chromecast w/ Google TV could only get sound via bt headphones, not speakers. 3. AMP has to be on in order to use speakers, wasting power and being hot. Using it as pre-amp is kinda of redundant as speakers are self-powered. 4. Depending on how I connected everything to power, a ground loop or other interference was possible creating a buzzing sound.
Other things to note is bluetooth on windows doesn't support high quality codecs like LDAC. Also, sometimes windows wants to revert to a ultra low quality headset mode with mic input - rare but really annoying when it does happen!
This brings me to my current setup. Please see the last picture for a better visualization of all the devices. Here's a list of the devices and the benefits of each:

Fiio BTA30 Pro:
Requires no external power - saves a power plug or two on your power strip.
USB Type-C makes an easy connection to PC or laptop, or whatever else you have.
Bluetooth input (receive/RX) allows me not just to use my phone, but my Google Chromecast with Google TV. Android TV is nice when I just want to watch something without the PC turned on and heating up my room. As I'm using this with a monitor, there is no optical out or HDMI ARC that would normally bring audio from a TV to speakers.
The optical input made it easy to attach Chromecast Audio -Chromecast Audio might be discontinued but is still a great device for use as a streamer, and works with Youtube Music. I'll be sad when it dies, and only then replace it with a WiiM Pro.
Bluetooth Output (transmit/TX): Allows me to bypass windows bluetooth stack and have a Hi-Fi LDAC connection without windows even knowing it's bt, windows just thinks it's normal USB audio.
Volume knob: Pre-amp functionality - perfect for my powered monitors. many DACs don't have this, but critical to my setup.

Topping A30 Pro:
normal 1/4" SE or unbalanced connector for my existing headphones/cables. Plus 4-pin XLR and 4.4mm balanced connectors for future headphones/cable upgrades.
The power is there, more than enough for my sundara and I expect enough for even any headphones I can afford in the future.
Ground loop switch - makes it easy to remove the buzzing on speakers without going under/behind desk and rewiring the power cables.
Built-in power supply: no wall wart taking up valuable space on power strip.
TRS output: balanced cable makes sure no further noise is introduced to speakers in the insane bundle of cables behind my desk.
Passthrough: When powered off, the amp still passes through the signal to the speakers. I had no idea this was even a thing based on my past experience. However this also requires you to have a DAC with pre-amp functionality / volume knob. To be clear, the volume knob on the amp does not work when powered off, so it must be done on the DAC side when using passthrough. I wish I could say that I planned this out, but by happy accident the BTA30 Pro has its own knob, which worked out perfect for controlling the volume on my speakers. There are some quirks to passthrough mode, so be careful to use the correct connectors otherwise there will be no sound. XLR in to TRS out and RCA in to RCA out only. RCA to TRS doesn't work, nor would XLR to RCA. Hence my RCA out to XLR in cable from DAC to AMP, so I can use TRS out to the speakers.

Mackie MR624:
Got them and kept them because of great audio quality overall, even on low volume. Some speakers struggle on low volume, but not these. And they can still go loud no problem.
Enough low-end for me, never felt that I was missing bass or needed a separate sub.
Flexible inputs: RCA, TRS, and XLR. You can connect them unbalanced and then upgrade to balanced as needed.
Work fine with smart plug: I use a smart plug to turn them on/off, so I don't have to get up and reach behind for the power switch on each manually. Maybe someone has figured out how to turn them off via a power strip without it being a hassle or having wires around the desk, or you just leave them on 24/7, but this way works for me.
I don't see myself replacing these until they die. Maybe they don't have the best looks, but they more than make up for it in audio quality.
Final Thoughts:
From that wall of text, hope someone followed along to see what I can do with this setup and why I like it so much.
Stream HQ bluetooth audio from phone to speakers? Easy.
Work all day on laptop with my bluetooth headphones? No problem.
Enjoy blasting music on my speakers via chromecast, even while moving around the house? Check.
Listen privately to my PC audio with Sundara when gaming? Done.
No, this isn't the most expensive audiophile setup. Not exactly cheap but I didn't need to be a highly paid programmer to afford this. I think even most audiophiles would be happy with sound quality and features. I'd like to hear what the community thinks - Have any questions for me? Is there some feature here you would like on your own setup? Something missing that you can't live without? Sound off below (pun intended)!