Is it worth buying a headphone amp?

Watch the prices fluctuate on Amazon. The AKG K702 is going for under $280 right now and I don't think you'll ever see them for less than that. That price will change fast.

I listen to Sennheiser 650's with a seperate headphone amp and it is the best sound I've ever heard. I have a pair of Sen. wireless phones which I use when my wife doesn't want to hear the stereo or tv. These are MUCH less expensive than the 650's, yet unless you A,B them to each other, the wireless phones are very, satisfying. I suspect your headphones will pleasantly surprise you when you get a good headphone amp. Senns are very musical.

I hope you also have loud speakers as well. You know about the dangers of extended headphone listening doctors are warning us about...

I find that with the better rich quality sound of a tube headphone amp allows me to enjoy at a lower volume, which adds to the safety of headphone listening.

However, since we all want to enjoy this sonic heaven all of our lives, I advise all to give up headphone listening, and get a enjoyable loud speaker set up.

The K702 are the best bargain in high-end headphones. They are open and clear and fast and musical and to my ears simply blow away anything in their price class. Yes, it took over 300 hours of burn in to fully tame the initial high frequency brightness, but after that you're in heaven. You'd have to spend way over $1000 to get sound this good, and, they are so comfortable I can wear them for hours.

I feed them from a Ray Samuels Audio tube headphone amp called The Raptor, which costs $1200 and is just magic with the K702s... Close your eyes and you're gone! Ray has a SS amp that is in your budget, but I highly recommend you hear them with tubes before deciding. Buy used and you'll be surprised how much you can get for your money.

Enjoy,
Alón

Update: I sold the HD555 and bought a mint pair of HD580, which hadn't even been broken in and already sound fantastic. The upgrade is significant--the HD580 sounds very much like the HD600 I used to own and is a much more refined headphone than the HD555. Bass goes deeper, midrange is much more natural, and highs are grain-free.

As far as a headphone amp goes, I may buy one later on but have found a great solution for now. One of the problems with the headphone jack on the NAD C372 integrated is that the gain is so high that 'phones are either too quiet and unbalanced or way too loud. Luckily, the amp has a second set of pre outs with variable gain. I've run a set of IC from that pre out and attenuated its gain by about 6dB. Now I can turn up the volume knob into a range where it works better, and the headphone sound is great.

My speakers sound better this way, too. Before, I could never go past 9 o'clock with the volume, and now I can turn it up toward 10-11. The headphone sound is a bit cool and dry, but the whole amp sounded that way when it was new, and the headphone stage hasn't been used enough to be fully broken in. I'm going to break it and the 'phones in over the next couple of days.