Need a < 200 dollar amp recommendation

I would not recommend a Y-splitter for headphones, especially if you're planning to use Audio-Technica (low impedance) and Sennheiser (high impedance) together. There will probably be a huge difference in volume between them. Most of the dual outputs on amps that have them are pretty much the same thing as a Y-splitter. Some will have separate headphone jacks for high and low impedance (still a Y-splitter, but the low impedance jack usually has a resistor in series). That's better, but still not optimal. If you're going to drive two headphones out of the same amp, then either get one with separate volume control per headphone, or use two exact same headphones.

 

The ATH-M50 sounds great even when driven directly by an iPod. So it's pretty much guaranteed to be excellent when plugged into your CD player's headphone jack. This way you can free up the amp to drive just the Sennheiser headphones alone, since those do need an amp to sound their best.

 

The Little Dot amps within your budget are the I+, Mk II, and Mk III. The I+ is a hybrid amp that can drive low impedance headphones, while the Mk II and Mk III are OTL¹ tube amps that work best with high impedance headphones. I've listened to my HD650 out of a friend's Little Dot Mk II and it sounded good.

 

 

¹Output TransformerLess

 

I too am thinking about a new headphone amp. I've got a pair of UE super fi IEMs and grado sr80 and RS 1s to play with. Most of my listening is at night before bed and mostly jazz but I'd like to be able to rock as well. Any suggestions?

I have not tried any of those pro audio studio amps myself, but I know what you're referring to. That was actually what I had in mind earlier. They can be very good bang for the buck at around $50 or so, from what I've read. And there isn't strictly any reason why such amps wouldn't work in a home hi-fi setting. After all, even the M50 was marketed as a "studio monitor".

 

One thing to take note of is the output impedance of the amp. Ideally, you would want the amp's output impedance to be lower than your headphone's impedance rating. The M50 is rated at 35 ohms if I remember correctly. At least one of those studio amps had a 50 ohms output impedance. (For a little context, the Little Dot Mk II is an OTL tube amp that works best with headphones at 300 ohms or higher.)

 

Sorry but I don't have any specific amp to recommend that has multiple volume controls.

 

Another option is to split the output of your CD player. Unlike with headphones, there is almost zero degradation when splitting a signal between two amps. You could get two Little Dot I+ amps, or two FiiO E9 amps. Or one of each. Again, I have not tried these specific amps myself, but have read nice things about them here in the forum. 

 

Remember that you can sell these amps later on to recover some of the cost. Head-fi has a nice set of "For Sale" sub forums.

 

I think the ibasso D2 or D4 might be a good choice.   Might find one used too for a lot less than $200.

Second the MkIII, esp with tube rolling