Should you invest in a headphone amplifier?
If you’ve invested in a pair of quality wired headphones, a dedicated headphone amplifier will get the very best from your cans and offer a serious sonic upgrade. A headphone amp works just like a traditional hi-fi amp, but engineered to work with the much lower power signals needed to drive tiny – rather than bookshelf or floorstanding – speakers and across a greater impedance range (anything from 1 to 600 ohms). Compared to the headphone socket in most hi-fi amplifiers, even the most basic dedicated analogue amp – such as the Pro-ject Head Box S2 (£125, project-audio. com) – will make your headphones sound better. This option relies on connection to a source via RCA port, but in recent years almost all new headphone amps also come with a built-in DAC (digital-to-analog converter) designed to enhance the audio from digital music. The headphone amp can take that analogue signal and amplifies it to a level that can drive your headphones.
Known as Dac/headphone amps, you can choose a mains-powered desktop design, ideal for plugging directly into your laptop and streaming hi-res, or compact battery-operated portable designs that plug into music players or smartphones. Many also come with Bluetooth
Even the most basic DAC/ headphone amp can feel like a huge upgrade
for wireless streaming, but audio quality will not be as good.
The best Dac/headphone amps are stupendously good. I often recommend the portable Chord Electronics Mojo 2 (£495; chordelectronics.co.uk) and the premium Chord Hugo 2 (£1,800). But you don’t have to spend big to transform how your digital music sounds through your headphones. Brands such as ifi (ifi-audio.com) and Fiio (fiio.com) specialise in affordable desktop and portable models, with prices starting under £100.
It is worth remembering that if you’re streaming poor-quality digital audio to your good headphones and shiny new DAC/ amp, you’ll not get the same level of performance as you would using hi-res audio files. Look to stream as close to CD quality as you can, either downloaded to your hard drive or streamed from services such as Tidal and Qobuz.
You don’t need to spend £4,699 on a pair of Focal Utopia headphones, although you will need a dedicated amp to get the best from these beauties. And if you lament the loss of your phone’s headphone jack, don’t care about wireless convenience and want to get the best possible audio, even the most basic DAC/ headphone amp will feel like a huge upgrade.