Do I need a headphone amp?

ADAVE Q, CAMDEN

Ooh, now. Don’t be trying to bait Guru into one of those audiophile traps he’s heard so much about. This is one of those situations where you’ll ask GaGu a question like ‘are these £3,000 speaker cables worth it’ and he will scoff, pat you sweetly on the head, bellow a resounding ‘no’ and then spend the next two years getting angry crayon-written letters from foamy fellows so trapped in their audio investment they cannot help but believe whatever is fed to them. If you’re already composing your missive, try not to get too much spittle on it.

High-end audio has its place, no doubt. Some of it is utterly incredible. But the gap between the low and high end of audio is, for the most part and for most people, a mere crack in the pavement; there are far too many cases where an audio placebo is hailed as the next sonic wonderdrug.

GaGu has taken a breath now, so let’s gently exhale a proper answer as the purple drains from his face. The answer is no, you probably don’t need a discrete headphone amp, with a fair emphasis on the ‘probably’. It does depend on what earwear you’re rocking, and whether your current amp can throw enough voltage at those high-impedance headphones to drive them properly. Planar magnetic cans, for example, actually do sound incredible, and they demand power. Some literally will not work without a headphone amp.

It also depends on how well your amplifier handles common-orgarden headphones, and whether its current 1/2-inch jack is a feature or a concession. If it’s the latter, you’ll probably already know why you want a headphone amp. And frankly, it depends on how often you lean back in that chair and let music trickle delightfully into your ears; headphone amps can make an appreciable difference to warmth and quality, but don’t buy one unless you actually need one.