Hi, do these really work, sound better, + worth getting ? or just play them through the normal amp output, or the cd h/phone output, etc thanks, Martyn

Hi Martyn - i think a headphone amp might be something to consider if you use your 'phones a lot. Most manufacturers don't bother paying too much attention to the performance of their headphone outputs, because they know that most don't listen much this way and they want to make the amp cheaper without affecting the speaker performance.

What type of budget are you on? There's a good range out there - for starters have a look at Creek Audio's products (www.creekaudio.com). For around £100 you'll get something which will do a job, or if you really want to splash out, Earmax do a lovely headphone amp for about £400...

It's a bit headphone dependent. A low impedence and high sensitivity pair of headphones will benefit less than a pair with low sensitivity which will benefit disproportionately.

In general they are worth it if you use them a lot. The headphone socket on your CD player will usually be low quality although there are some honourable exceptions - I quite like the headphone stages on my Tag Mclaren PA10.

There's a very interesting kit that Hifi World sells that is valve driven and quite easy to build (if you can solder). I heard it at Bristol and liked it. It's valve driven and much cheaper than the Earmax.

Thanks Chris , i put my h/phones into my marantz cd player the cd6000 ose le . thing is this as a vol control on it, which i have to turn VERY low, as its to loud in my ears ,etc,? but this sounds better than through my Yamaha 396 Amp. etc, the h/phones i use are the, new GRADO SR325i + the Senn hd 580 . thanks for that, Martyn

Those Sennheisers probably DO need an amp to get the very best out of them.

There are some quite interesting ones on www.headphone.com that don't cost much. The portable ones are very good if you use an Ipod etc and they run off batteries.

Some of the larger ones use offboard power supplies so you can get around the 110 volt issue of buying from the States by using your own power supply. The exchange rate makes things interesting price wise.

Anybody has any experience with Creek OBH-11SE Class A little headphone amp with OBH-2 power supply module? I just bought this used (1 yr old) on eBay for 200$US and am waiting or it to arrive.

I have pair of Grado SR60 headphones.

I have seen that they were Stereophile recommended component (do nt rememer whether class a, b or c) and that they are compared as equal to MF X-CAN v3.

Once I have them will report to this forum how I think it sounds.