So you have a strictly analogue or a digital-friendly system pride of place in your living room, likely comprising a source, stereo amplifier and pair of loudspeakers either way. But if it is the latter kind, you might consider adding another component: a dedicated DAC. And with either system type, if you spend considerable time listening to it through headphones, you may well benefit from adding an external headphone amplifier. Perhaps both upgrades are on the cards, or even one upgrade that will take care of both. So what does each do exactly and where would your money be best spent?
What is a headphone amplifier?
At its core, a headphone amplifier is an amplifier circuit that is specifically designed to drive headphones rather than speakers. That might sound like a simple enough task — after all, headphones are just small speakers, right? But perhaps because the job seems so simple, it turns out to be a bit of a blind spot for many manufacturers and is usually given a low priority.
While dedicated headphone outputs have faded from many phones (thanks for that, Apple), they still exist on a huge array of components spanning the audio magazine and know that sound quality matters.
