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Looks for Headphone Tube Amp

Hey everyone,

I’m not an audiophile, but I’m looking for help when it comes to finding a small tube amp for a pair of Meze 99 Classic closed back headphones. Something between $100 - $250, I mostly listen to indie, acoustic, pop, and hiphop

They don’t require much power to drive them--I could use them w/o an amp--but I’d love to have an amp simply to improve the sound quality as much as possible, within reason. Looking to use the headphones and amp for an iPhone and Macbook air.

Would love any suggestions and reasoning behind the suggestions.

Again, I’m not an audiophile, and know these aren’t audiophile quality headphones, but I like seeking the advice of experts!
whyistherenopie
loomisjohnson
1,941 posts
 
i got an aune t1 tube headphone amp on ebay for around a hundo and really like it
soix
9,456 posts
 
should I use both a DAC and an amp?
Absolutely — your headphones are plenty good enough to reward you significantly by feeding it a better signal, and the DACs in iPhones and iMacs suck and will greatly limit your sound quality. At your budget I’d avoid tubes and go with a combo amp/DAC like an AudioQuest Dragonfly Red or something from Topping, etc. And get Qobuz instead of Tidal if you can — it’s cheaper and better with none of the intrusive MQA crap to deal with. BTW, you’ll also need an Apple Lightening to USB 3 cable (about $30) to be able to bypass the device’s internal DAC.  You won’t hear much difference with crap MP3 tracks, but CD resolution and up will sound much better.  Hope this helps, and best of luck.

whyistherenopie OP
18 posts
 
@soix what are your thoughts on this portable dac/amp?

https://www.audioadvice.com/ifi-hip-dac-portable-dac-and-headphone-amplifier?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5auGBhDEA...
whyistherenopie OP
18 posts
 
@soix also, totally fine shelling out more for a desktop amp, and dac/amp combo. Just piecing it together over the next month.

In that case, any amp suggestions? Or amps that would pair well w my dragonfly or the portable amp/dac I just posted?

ghdprentice
6,961 posts
 
My experience is portable are generally not nearly as good as desktop, I have tried a few.  I definitely include my own A&K Ultimate SP1000 (~ $3.5K) with attached extra amp. It is good, but not nearly as good as a similar desktop equipment.
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