Headphone Amps & DACs

A dedicated headphone amplifier takes the line output from your audio source and amplifies it to a level that is capable of driving even the most demanding headphones.  A DAC takes a digital signal (either from USB on a computer or via optical/coax digital cables) and converts it to an analogue audio signal.  Also called headphone amps, Digital to Analogue Convertors and headphone DACs.

To get the best from listening with headphones a dedicated headphone amp is a very worthy addition to your audio setup.  Headphone output circuits often have very little effort given to their design and can provide a very poor quality audio signal.  Also many headphone outputs are simply not powerful enough to drive high end headphones properly.

The headphone output on many portable audio sources, such as iPods, iPhones and laptops, can be very poor indeed.  The electronics used often leave much to be desired and are designed with budget, rather than sound quality, as the major design factor.  A headphone amplifier or combined DAC/headphone amp can even offer ways to avoid the noisy headphone output completely.

Portable electronics devices, such as the iPod, MP3 player and laptops, often benefit from the addition of a dedicated headphone amplifier and/or DAC.