suggestion for my first amp ...

have you thought about tubes?
if you're wiling to tweak your setup you would be well rewarded with great sound at a budget price.

i had about $500 to go the tube route and i managed to get the ASL waves (they're little monoblock amps) with their preamp and a pair of wharfedale speakers (not the greatest but a step up)

The sound out of those little amps is divine. and with the auricaps, they are really a highend sound for not too much.

the only problem is there is no phono input or headphone input!

so maybe, get the monoblocks and a preamp with a phono/headphone input


just my $.02

Get a forum-built DIY amp

For a first amp, it's hard to beat the bang-for-the-buck of an amp built by one of the other forum members. (JMT, MisterX, LaRocco, etc.) I'm in the process of getting a maxed-out PIMETA from MisterX right now; after much looking around that seemed to be the absolute best quality I could find from any (non-portable) amp, commercial or otherwise, while staying on a fairly tight budget. That's the route I'd go.

I second the DIY route. The builders are very skilled. JMT in particular does incredible soldering work. Looks manufactured.

I'm in a similar position (considering my first amp)...which of those manufactored by the good folk on head-fi in particular do you recommend?
When do they start to make a difference in sonic quality vs. volume only, as I've heard some cheap amps do?

DIY amp types

There are quite a few levels of common DIY-type amps the forum people can build. Pretty much all of them are an improvement over a bad headphone jack in terms of quality. Here are some of the most common. My price quotes are total estimates off the top of my head and people can feel free to correct me:

CMOY/CHA47/MINT-type amp:
Anywhere from $40 to $100. Many of these have been described as "bright" or even "harsh" in the upper registers, but even this amp is probably a better headphone jack than a cheapo soundcard or discman. This is also a great project if you'd like to start building your own amps and learning how the designs and tweaking process work, because it's a forgiving design with not too much $$$ in parts.

PIMETA-based amp:
One of the most popular DIY-type amps, these are a noticeable step up from CMOY amps in quality, and because they are fairly cheap, they make a great "first amp" for someone looking to get a real, quality amp at a low price. Depending on parts these tend to cost anywhere from $120 to $170, and can be optimized for either portable or non-portable use. I have heard suggestions that this amp competes with some commercial amps costing on either side of the $500 mark (it probably depends on what you're listening for and which amps you're comparing). This is also doable as a first self-built amp, though due to the increased parts cost it's probably not recommended for someone without any electronics experience.

PPA-based amp:
A highly regarded DIY amp, these are more expensive and more configurable (I've seen prices in the $350 - $750 range for vastly different configurations). Some seem think this amp competes with commercial amps priced near $1000. I haven't heard one. Probably not a good project for an inexperienced amp-builder to actually do it yourself. There are many tweaks or add-ons for this amp, ranging from a power supply design to Phil's hopefully-available-soon "diamond buffer" mod to a DAC board one forum member is working on.

Of course there are dozens of other DIY amp designs, but these three are maybe the ones that are mostly commonly available "prebuilt" from other forum members in a semi-commercial fashion (i.e. they build it to your specs, as opposed to "hey I built myself this amp, now I'm selling it"). There are also many amp builders, some of whom have webpages for you to order from, and some of whom do not. Prices vary, but probably all of the frequently-recommended people build high-quality stuff.

Note, finally, that you might find yourself paying more than you expected for an amp, if you want to buy a good power supply, interconnects, etc. with it.

I'm with raif on this one. JMT builds beautiful equipment. AND does a first class job of handholding the nervous newcomer.

I speak from experience. Good experience.

BW