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Amps
A headphone amp the size of a matchbox
Three small headphone amps, and an honest answer to whether you need one at all.
You need an amp when the volume is already at maximum and it is still not quite enough. You need one when the bottom end sounds thin and polite on headphones that are supposed to have weight. And you need one when quiet passages turn grainy, because the laptop output is straining rather than driving.
What a small amp gives back is the quiet end: reverb tails that fade instead of stopping, the bottom of a bass line, the detail the whole course is built around. It does not make anything louder in a way that matters. It makes quiet hold together.
The video review
The same headphones, straight from the laptop and then through each of the three.
What we would actually buy
Start here
The dongle
Under about C$60, a USB-C stick with a headphone socket on the end. No battery, no knob, nothing to charge or lose. It will not transform demanding headphones, but it will clean up a laptop output that was never designed for this, and it costs less than a night out. If you are not sure you need an amp at all, this is how you find out cheaply.
Our pick: [model name] · [price] · Where to get it
The one most people should buy
The matchbox with a knob
Around C$100 to C$250 buys a small metal box with a real volume control and enough power for almost any headphones you will own. The knob matters more than it sounds: a physical control you can set and leave is how you keep judging changes at the same volume, which is the single habit this course keeps coming back to.
Our pick: [model name] · [price] · Where to get it
If you already know you care
The one that stays on the desk
Past about C$250 you are buying a desktop unit: more power than you need, a better converter, and usually a second socket so two people can listen at once. The real reason to go here is that it never moves and never needs charging, so it becomes part of the desk rather than a thing you fetch. Overkill for a twenty-minute night, and lovely if this has stopped being a hobby.
Our pick: [model name] · [price] · Where to get it
Some of the links above are affiliate links, and some of these are products sold through this shop. Either way the price is the same for you, and nothing is listed here that we would not use ourselves.
