I would never call myself an audiophile, but I know what I like. I told Santa that I wanted a set of the cheap HE-X4 planar headphones for Christmas. I plan to use them for music from my desktop PC. I understand that if my audio card/chip can’t deliver enough power to drive the headphones to a sufficient volume level, I’ll need an amp between the PC and the cans. But being an old “stereo” guy, is there any reason I couldn’t input the PC audio into a home audio receiver/amp and use the headphone output from that to drive the headphones? What advantage, if any, would I get from buying one of these fancy DAC headphone amps? What advantage do more expensive headphone amps have over cheaper headphone amps? At 66 years old, I have no hope of having “golden ears” any longer.
The catch is that this particular headphone draws a fair amount of current. Potentially more than a regular receiver will put up with without the distortion going up. It’s hard to know for sure with receivers since the relevant specs are almost never published.
If you’re in north America, Schiit Audio currently has a closeout sale on their Magni+ amp for 80 dollars. That could be a good choice.
The potential crux of hooking up an amp to the headphone or line-out port of a PC is that if the internal soundcard is picking up electrical noise, an amp won’t get rid of it. You’d need an external DAC to fix that problem if it happens.