How to Choose a Headphone Amp and DAC

High-end headphones are great, but often need an amplifier to sound their best. How should you pick one, and is getting a separate DAC a good idea?

Headphone power calculators:

[vijeyv]

WTF why is choosing a new pair of headphones harder than building a PC

[dracer]

6 years later this is still good info. Thanks baby face Luke! 😂

[S]

@ about 1:54 in ref. to Sensitivity, 99dB @ 1mW will be 102dB @2mW not double the dB. Every time you double down on power you only gain 3 decibels.

[FelixTBat]

Just in case people are wondering why 10db is would be considered safe under the "threshold of pain", is because it'd actually be half the volume. Anything that increases or decreases in volume by 10db is respectively double or half as loud as the previous number. IE something that is 120 db will be TWICE as loud as 110 db. Please keep this in mind when looking at the "loudness" numbers from the headphone calculator :)

[WAQWBrentwood]

"Threshold of Pain" is a good name for a band.

[austinflavio]

after days of research, you decided to move to Canada.

[CrudeBrothers]

Great video ... just started getting into high-end headphones, amps, etc

[dangerouspie]

Just be careful with this stuff guys. There's a lot of snake oil in the hi-fi market right now.

[beatsprodbycm]

bro I just wanted headphones for mixing now I'm stuck searching up about dacs and headphone amps and audio interfaces I'm all over the place help lol

[e.kent.d]

Very GOOD advise in this video! Also, I have an external DAC that cost $105.00 and it did wonders for the sound coming out of my computer (music). No need to go more expensive, unless you just have to, for your own reasons. We all have our own tastes. I concur with the rest of your advice too, from my own experience.

[kaitsurugi]

This was actually helpful!
Sometimes Techquickie leaves me with more questions than answers 😅

[flos]

and than they listen to mp3 at 128kb/s...

[nederlandas]

Video for headphones, I like how the audio here is full of glitches xD

[TechGamesAU]

It's still too hard, just tell me exactly what to buy.

[PolarBearBlue]

This video, as well as others on the channel, is a Godsend. Explained information in a fast and precise way, watered down to layman's terms so that none of it is confusing. Thank you and keep it up

[TheBaken]

This is extremely useful and timely- I was just looking for how to figure out this info when your video came out. Thanks Luke!

[jzandlerpus]

DAC: Schiit Bifrost
AMP: Schiit Asgard 2
Headphones: Sennheiser hd 650

[NullyBird]

The electronic static in your voice recording made me think my headphones were defective. Thank you for the headache I endured while testing other equipment on other devices.

[tprice]

I love my Mayflower Objective2 ODAC combo, it just works and sounds great!

[PendragonNC]

So, if you spend more on headphones, you typically need to buy even more equipment.
Logic.