Please Help-Need decent headphone amp for office

[smm11]

I need a good amp to use at my desk at work. Looking to spend around $200 (possibly a little more if it is worth it). Looking to use it with my Sirius radio setup (radio+boombox that I keep on my desk) the sound is loud enough to run my headphones (I have a pair Ultrasone and Grado's that I keep at the office), but the sound quality is awful (though the online premium streaming is OK, but can't stream at the office). Looking for something to improve the sound quality as best I can. I have my Headroom Airhead hooked up now, and it does help, but looking to step it up a notch. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am not looking for it to be portable. Right now I am looking at the Cute beyond, the Meir Corda Areitta and either the little dot MK II or III (though never owned a tube amp, don't know if that would be good for my setup), they seem to fit into my budget. Does anyone have any input on any of these items or any other suggestions?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am somewhat new to the audiophile game.

Thank you!

 

[Bullseye]

Hi smm11

Welcome to Head-fi and sorry about your wallet

I do not understand what you are using as source. Do you listen to radio? Or to Cds?

Do not expect much improvement just by changing the amplifier. Amplifiers only should amplify the signal. Tube amps and hybrid amps give more distortion to the sound -that bring some warmness if you want to call it like that-. I have a Little Dot I+ hybrid amp and with my grados sr225 sounds pretty decent. First impressions did not show any Sound Quality improvement. Over time as i said before i can only hear that "warmer sound".

 

[smm11]

Hey,

Thanks so much for the helpful info and the warm welcome. Just to clarify, I have a portable Sirius radio (stiletto 100) that I put into a "boombox" that is made for the radio itself, so it ads speakers to it, but I am usually listening through headphones because the office is kind of noisy. So I am just listening to the radio. Without anything, the quality is (or is supposed to be) similar to MP3's (though I would say its definitely less so)

I know that the amp's aren't really meant to "improve the sound" necessarily and the quality is only going to be as good as the source, but I thought if I got something somewhat decent it would improve the sound somewhat (or give it that "warmer" maybe even clearer sound).

The main reason I don't want to spend too much more the $200 is mainly because it would be for my desk and I don't want to leave anything too expensive lying around.

I will check out the I+ hybrid amp. Thank you again for the help.

 

[Brighten]

An Eddie Current Lunchbox II. The chaps at your office will go wild.