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I'm sorry for being so ignorant. Would that only give more decibel or would it alter the sound quality also?
Imagine you are in your car pulling a trailer up over varying terrain -- both the flat and even as well as up and down hills.
And let's say that your car is a ford fiesta. It's perfectly fine car and you'll likely get to your destination just fine.
However you may feel that climbing the hills, the engine is straining and you're barely making it.
That's sort of the experience with having more power on hand with your headphone amp. There are frequencies where
a given headphone is less easy to drive and having more power on hand will help the push the headphone
where it needs the help. Just like having a big Diesel V-8 truck will give you the feeling of flattening out those hills when
pulling a trailer.
But given all of that, your M50s are pretty easy to drive across the gamut. It's a pretty light and easy trailer to pull.
So for this load, you don't strictly need an amp. However some people choose tube amp precisely because they
give a bit of richness to the tone body of the sound. In a manner of speaking. They sound a bit fuller and fatter, though
in many cases (I'm speaking very generally here) you may fine that your average tube amp gives up a little
with hard driving rhythm and speed of attacks. Just painting a generalization here -- and there are many exceptions.
Another reason to have an amp, when working with a computer source, is that you want an external DAC whose
line level output needs an amp before feeding the signal to your headphone amp.
Hope that helps.