[Saeglopur]

Hello all, I'm thinking about purchasing my first pair of audiophile quality headphones for Christmas. I have a receiver that I have my tv hooked to that plays through speakers and it has a usb for my iPod audio and I was wondering if I can hook my headphones to it if that functions as a headphone amp even as a temp set up or should I invest in an actual headphones amp? The headphones I'm looking at are the audeze lcd2 if that's relevant at all and I don't know the receiver model or anything and I'm at work. So I'll try to update this later

 

[NA Blur]

There is no guarantee that a standalone headphone amp will perform better than the receiver's headphone out!  This requires measurements and at the very least a listening comparison.  A few things to note about receivers though is they are typically designed to do a bunch of things well and not focus on doing any of them tremendously well.  This means the headphone out may not be ideal, but it should get you up and running buying you time to enjoy the new headphones and see if upgrading is necessary.
 
A few things to listen for with any audio setup are:
 
1.)  Noise:  Is there excess hiss, buzz, hum, or other unwanted noise in the sound
2.)  Bass Extension:  Many amps have poor damping and do not extend well into the bass which will affect bass impact and depth.
3.)  Loudness:  Can the receiver get the headphones up to adequate loudness ( especially for classical listening )?  This is a combination of the amps power and voltage output vs the efficiency and load of the headphone.  You should be fine with the LCD-2.
4.)  Treble clarity:  Some audio setups create problem when reproducing treble heard in chimes, cymbals, and other metallic instruments.  They will sound splashy and tinny instead of quick and metallic.
 
If the receiver has an AUX input you can run an iPod or other portable into that with a stereo mini to Y-splitter.
 
Hope that helps.