[Goobertastic]

I'm curious about investing somewhere down the line in a head phone amp to pair with my sennheiser hd 598 s and marantz cd 5004. This is not an immediate purchase so I'd be curious to hear about amps from different price ranges but no more than 250 usdlrs I suppose. I'm also curious as to how I would hook up an amp to my CD player. The digital out has a coaxial and optical option. Would this limit my choice of amps? Which would be best to use? Thanks.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

A headphone amp without a DAC built into it* will have RCA analogue inputs, so you hook those up to the analogue outputs on the CD5004.
 
Those just have caps to protect them from dust, BTW

 
You can find some headphone amps that have a decent DAC - or DACs that have a decent headphone amp - that have both analogue and digital inputs; check if the Burson Conductor and some AudioGD products have these. That way you can choose whether to hook up the CDP either way, depending on which sound you prefer; and maybe even have your computer or laptop (or compatible USB Audio-capable smartphone) in the other input.
 
Still, doesn't the CD5004 have a decent headphone out? When I had my old Marantz CD60, I liked its headphone out over the Little Dot MkII for my HD600.
 
 
*or a DAC with good headphone amp with its own analogue inputs

 

[Goobertastic]

It does have a very nice headphone out I've just heard that a good amp will really improve the sound. I don't know if this is actually true though as i have no way of testing this without slapping down a lot of money which i don't feel like doing at the moment. Ill just hold off for now and enjoy the system i have. It actually sounds better since I've gotten it (don't know if Cd players have burn in like headphones). Any ways if I keep spending money on equipment I wont have any money for music which is the most important part of any setup in my opinion. Thanks for the info though I'll keep it in mind for the future.