Headphone Heights

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Beyerdynamics Cans for Christmas - Question

Posted by Drew769 on January 2, 2013 at 13:16:42:
So Santa was nice and brought me a nice set of Beyerdymanics DT990 Pro 250ohm cans for Christmas. So far, I'm enjoying them very much. I'm primarily a "speaker" guy, but I wanted a set of phones for late night listening.

My question is about amplification. I am using my regular system for the source and the pre-amp dutues (VPI TT or Rega CD w/Rega DAC for source, Rogue Audio Perseus Magnum tubed preamp), and then routing the music through the second set of pre-outs to a vintage Yamaha A-1 (c. 1979) Integrated, which has a headphone section. This amp is a well-regarded integrated, with huge power supplies and an all DC design. I believe the output to the headphone jack is 35mv at 8 ohms, but I may have that wrong.

In any event, the sound (to my ears) is pretty good. The DT990s reveal a lot of information (similar to my Vandersteen speakers), but also have smooth highs and midrange, and very good (but real) bass. Lots of transparency, no harshness. The Yamaha seems to be able to drive them with power to spare.

Here is the question: Do dedicated headphone amps generally blow away regular amplifiers with headphone outputs? In general, does a lower end dedicated headphone amp like a Schiit Asgard or Magni perform much better than a regular amplifier? Part of me is curious to try one, but it's hard to imagine the sound getting much better than I'm getting from this integrated.