I've never had a full sized pair of headphones before, but a friend of mine recently parted with his old pair of Sennheiser HD 555s and gave them to me for pretty close to free. I'll be using them with my laptop primarily, and I was wondering what I should buy to get the most out of them without spending too much. I have about $100 to spend I'd say, maybe a little more. Also I live in Canada, so keep exchange rates/shipping in mind if you could.
After doing a bit of research, I've found mixed reviews. I've seen people say an amp will increase the quality quite a bit for these headphones. Then I've heard people say that is nonsense, and that the 555's have no problem with volume levels from a laptop sound card and that an amp wouldn't do much. Then I've heard some people say to buy a DAC, and other people said to buy a USB soundcard. I'm pretty confused about all of this, so I'll put it down as simply as possible. For around $100, how could I improve the quality of music heard through my laptop going into 555's the most? I suppose I should also say that I'm happy with the quality of the 555s and I don't take music listening too seriously, so I don't think I'll upgrade any time in the foreseeable future. Doing a bit of lurking I've seen people recommend high-ish end source components even to power lower end headphones, since they say that if you upgrade the headphones you'll still need a good amp. While that logic seems sound, I don't really think it should be applied to me.
Thanks in advance
Edited by Kippersauce - 12/25/10 at 1:57pm
