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Tyre-kicker's guide

Hi-res players & Headphone amps

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Hi-res players & Headphone amps

You have your headphones and they sound pretty good but... What you need to think about is some quality boosting add-ons such as an amp and a hi res music player to really bring the emotion into the music

HEADPHONE AMP

A headphone amp is an amplifier specifically designed to power or drive your headphones. Your smartphone, for example so long as it has a headphone socket, has a headphone amplifier built-in. But here we're talking about a standalone headphone amp that'll derive max performance from your headphones, especially higher impedance designs. Higher impedance headphones – think 25 ohms and above – require more power, which is where the headphone amp comes in. If your headphones sound quiet, you likely need a headphone amp. A capable headphone amp can boost the audio performance of pretty much any headphones, but the more capable the cans, the more pronounced the results.