I would suggest you not worry too much about getting "the best." For three reasons:
1. There's no one single "best." There are lots of different opinions.
2. By seeking "the best," you're opening yourself up to neverending escalation. You know: "for $250 you can get xyz, but for just a little more you can get abc...and then you trick it out with the ghi opamps and the jkl power supply..." This kind of thing gets badly out of hand on a regular basis around here; if you're at all on a budget, do your best to resist it.
3. The HD595 doesn't need a really high-end amp to sound good. Your iPod drives it very well already, and because it places pretty modest demands on an amp, in reality every amp you can get will sound good with it. There will be amp-to-amp variations in tonal signature and bass power, but nobody but you will know which of those variations is "best" for you. (And it's extremely possible that by the time you fasten down on what the right sound is for you, you'll have discovered that it comes from some other headphone than the HD595...and that once you have that headphone your amp search starts all over again.)
So what I suggest is that you get yourself an amp that is widely recognized as good, without trying to go for the ultimate. The happy side-effect of this is that it also won't break the bank. My personal nomination would be the
Go-Vibe V5, but there seem to be a number of other well-regarded candidates at the under-$100 price point these days.
Cables: You'll need to purchase separately a cable to connect your iPod to your amp. You can connect either through the dock connector or through the headphone jack. Connecting through the dock connector tends to be the preferred method around here, but connecting through the headphone jack really does work just fine* despite the considerable amount of FUD on the subject.
Still, let's say you want to connect through the dock connector. There are two ways to do it. One is to use a standard "mini-to-mini" cable along with an adaptor that converts the dock connector to a minijack, and the other is to use a specialty cable that has a miniplug on one end and a dock connector on the other. (I'll list specifics in a moment.)
Another thing I would encourage you to add to your rig is the
Grado mini-to-1/4" adaptor. Modest-priced amps come with 1/8" minijacks, while your HD595 comes with a 1/4" plug. "Yes, but it also came with this little miniplug-to-1/4 inch jack adaptor," I hear you say. True, but the two plugged together put a bit of physical stress on the amp's output jack that could eventually result in damage, so you'll buy yourself some peace of mind, and possibly longer amp life, by using the Grado adaptor instead.
So let's add up the budget version of this system (exclusive of shipping, tax, etc.):
- Go-Vibe V5 $75
-
SendStation PocketDock with line-out $30
-
Cardas 6" mini-to-mini cable $14
- Grado mini-to-1/4" adaptor $15
Total:
$134 + shipping/handling/tax (plus a battery). Not bad!
Perhaps you want to go a little upscale. You'll get more performance** out of the Go-Vibe by adding an
external AC adaptor. And the dock-to-mini cables from
AudioLineOut.com sound great and look great too.
So the higher-budget-but-still-not-insane version of this system might look like:
- Go-Vibe V5 $75
- Elpac PSU $33
- ALO Cryo Dock $85
- Grado mini-to-1/4 $15
Total:
$208 plus shipping/handling/tax/battery.
That's going to be a nice system. Perhaps not the ultimate, and certainly not the most prestigious, but you can see that after shipping, etc., you're going to be pretty closely pushing $250 without even trying hard. And it's very questionable to me whether it's worthwhile to spend any more than this amping the HD595 in any case.
*[size=xx-small]At least in the USA; in Europe with volume-limited iPods, the output level of the headphone is compromised.[/size]
**[size=xx-small]How
much more is subject to a) what headphones you're driving and b) general debate like everything else on Head-Fi. I haven't yet tried the Elpac specifically with the HD595, but can do it Monday, and then I'll update this post.[/size]
