Headfi Audio for Dummies

Last year I wrote a Stereo Building for Dummies post laying out the basics for a loudspeaker system. In the last couple of months I’ve gotten a few similar questions about headphones and their care and feeding, so I thought it would be worth putting together a quick outline of the basics of headphone hifi, or Headfi. I’m going to focus primarily on digital media in this post, but much of it (except the parts about DACs) will also apply to a purely analog system. I’ll start by reiterating my four rules of hi-fi audio, then get into it:

1. You like what you like. The most important factor in judging an audio system is also the simplest: does it sound good, to you, in your space, and listening to the things you want to listen to?[1] Many of my fellow audio nerds spend a lot of time arguing about objectivity and measurements, and that seems silly to me. Do you like the $5 headphones that came with your phone? Sweet! Enjoy! Do you want to spend $25,000 on a set of Macintosh separates? Awesome, please invite me over to listen to them (and maybe add me to your will?).
2. Used gear is your friend. Audiophiles spend a lot of time chasing the new hotness, and a lot of their gear ends up in the used market. You have to be a bit careful with used gear from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, but a good used hifi shop will have tested and potentially worked on gear they’re putting out for sale, and can talk to you about it (and, usually, let you listen to it before you buy!).
3. Components interact in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Even high-quality speakers or headphones may sound less-than-stellar when connected to a particular amplifier or source, and it gets infinitely weirder in a separates-based system.[2]
4. No system is the end-all, be-all. Everything can be upgraded. Nothing is forever. Components break, and some of them can’t be easily repaired or replaced. That’s okay. Embrace the change. Half the fun of audio is figuring out what you can swap in for a particular piece of gear and the changes that doing so can bring.

[Caveat: I’m not an objectivist. I don’t really care about measurements or graphs; I care about what a system sounds like to my ears, playing music that I like, in the spaces I am inhabiting. I’m not going to talk about measurements here, but there’s a wild world out there of objectivists on the internet if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m also not a professional reviewer; I don’t (and can’t) listen to everything, and I tend to focus on the stuff I like rather than spending brain power on the things I don’t. Everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt.]

Headphone Basics, aka Headfi 101

To build a headphone system, you need at a minimum four things: 1) a pair of headphones[3] (or several!) to produce sound, 2) an amplifier to provide power to the headphones (to “drive” them), 3) one or more sources to provide the audio signal to the amplifier, and 4) the media you want to listen to (a CD, a tape, a record, or a streaming service for some examples). If you are listening to a digital source (a CD, streaming file, .mp3, etc.), you’ll also need a fifth thing: 5) a digital-to-analog converter (aka a “DAC”). DACs are devices that take a digital signal (a CD, a computer file, or a streaming service) and convert it to an analog signal (what speakers or headphones use to produce sound).

Analog sources as well as DACs are connected to amps via analog cables (almost always RCA cables; the old red and white paired things you’ve seen your whole life), and headphones will be connected to the amp via a headphone cable (a particular flavor of analog cable)[4]. Digital sources will be connected to a DAC via a digital cable (USB, optical, coaxial, etc.).

In any given system, these devices can be separate or mixed in almost any combination. Here are examples of some simple, modern systems:

1. A pair of wireless headphones connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth (the phone is the source, the headphones are the DAC, amplifier, and headphones);
2. A pair of old Apple Earbuds connected to a pre-2016 iPhone via the old audio jack (the Earbuds are the headphone, the phone the DAC, amplifier, and source);
3. A modern iPhone with the free, included EarPods (the phone is the source, the headphones the DAC, amplifier, and headphones); or
4. A pair of Sony foam ball headphones plugged into a Walkman (the headphones are the headphones, and the Walkman both source and amplifier, no DAC is required because cassettes are an analog source).

This is a simple audio system: a pair of Campfire Audio Holocene IEMs plugged into an iPhone via a ALO Audio Pilot dongle DAC

When you start looking at a more resolving modern audio system, the likelihood is that things will be more separated with dedicated devices doing each piece of the signal chain. As an example, as I’m working on this document, I’m listening to a pair of Focal Elex (wired headphones) connected to a Schiit Magnius (an amplifier), connected to a Dragonfly Red dongle (a DAC), plugged into a Mac Studio (a source), streaming music from Tidal (the media), via a whole-house music service called Roon.

This is a more complex, arguably better resolving headphone system: a pair of Meze 109 Pros connected to a Schiit Asgard 2 Amplifier and a Bifrost DAC, via an aftermarket XLR-terminated cable and an XLR-to-6.5 mm adatper. The Bifrost is being driven via USB by the Mac Studio on my desk, controlled via my Roon system.

Here's the basic signal chain for headphones, simplified:

• Digital music, wired: source digital cable DAC analog cable amplifier headphone cable headphone.
• Digital music, wireless: source Bluetooth/wifi headphone.
• Analog music: source (cassette player, turntable, etc.) analog cables amplifier headphone cable headphone. [note: this whole signal chain is analog, so no DAC is required.][5]

My Building Philosophy

Like for speaker setups, my general philosophy on headphone system building is to maximize the bang for your buck. For me this generally means prioritizing, in descending order of importance: Headphones > Amplifier  > Media > DAC > Source > cables & interconnects > power cables. I.e. your headphones matter more than your amplification, which matters more than the media you’re using, which matters more than your DAC, which matters more the quality of the source, etc. There are exceptions and edge cases on all of this, and a really, really lousy source or lossy media will limit your experience, but there’s a pretty low, very achievable floor for these, especially in the digital space. If forced to choose when upgrading one piece to a better option, this is the order I default to, unless I can get a particularly screaming deal on something out of order.

Let’s talk Headphone Categories

These are the things that sit on your head, or in your ears, and that generate the sounds you listen to. They’re very small speakers, designed specifically to sit very close to your ears, and thus don’t need to get very loud compared to loudspeakers.

Examples of headphones, clockwise from left: ZMF Audio Bokeh Closed, Beats Studio Pros,  Moondrop Chu IEMs

Classifying headphones

There are a number of ways to categorize headphones, but I’m going to focus on three sets of distinctions: 1) type, 2) noise isolation, and 3) connectivity.

For what I’m calling type, mostly headphones fall into one of three major categories: over-ear, on-ear, or in-ear.

• Over-ear headphones (also called “cans”) sit on the sides of your head, with earcups that surround your ears and usually supported by one or more bands across the top of your head. This is what you probably think of when you hear the word headphone.
• On-ear headphones are similar to over-ears, but instead of cups that go around the outside of your ear, they typically have smaller cups that sit on top of the outer parts of your ear. On-ears seem to have fallen out of favor so they’re a lot less common these days.
• In-ear headphones actually insert into your ears; some sit in the outer part of your ear, and others require a pretty deep insertion in your ear canal for optimal sound. In-ears include everything from the basic earbuds that a lot of electronic devices come with, to true wireless earbuds like the AirPods, all the way up to very expensive, bespoke in-ear monitors (IEMs) used by professional musicians and audio nerds like me.

In the audiophile community, we seem to primarily focus on over-ears and in-ears (particularly IEMs), but they all have their advantages and disadvantages. Generally, at any given price point you can get more performance from a quality IEM than from over-ears, but a lot of people (myself included) find wearing most IEMs uncomfortable for any lengthy period of time, and I personally find I get a lot better soundstage and consistency of sound from over-ears.

My second categorization method is noise isolation. Broadly, headphones can be open-back, closed-back, or active noise cancelling:

• Open-back: no noise insulation; you will hear the world around you, and anyone sitting close enough to you may be able to hear what you’re listening to. Budget-friendly(ish) classics in the genre are Beyerdynamics DT 990 Pro, the Senneheiser x Drop 6XX, and the Hifiman Edition XS.

Two examples of open-back headphones in very different price categories: Sennheiser HD 515 (left) and the Hifman Arya Stealth  (right)

• Closed-back: decent noise insulation; you might be able to hear very loud sounds around you, but most background noise will be physically blocked by the construction and materials of the headphone. Budget-friendly(ish) Classics in this group include the Meze 99 Classic/Noir/Neo, and the Beyerdynamics DT 770 Pro (which I, incidentally, truly loathe)

Two examples of closed-back headphones: ZMF Audio Bokeh Closed (left) and Meze x Drop 99 Noir (right)

• Active noise cancelling (or “ANC”): these kinds of headphones use special software to generate a soundwave to cancel out the noise around you, usually combined with some sort of passive noise-blocking construction. This includes everything from the AirPods Pro 2 to the Beats Studio Wireless line to the Sennheiser Momentums to the Bose 700s/QC line. Historically this has been more a consumer-grade type of headphone and is usually either wireless or hybrid.

Examples of active noise canceling headphones: Bose 700 (left), Status Audio Between ANC (inside Bose), Beats Studio Buds (top), Apple AirPods Max (right), Apple AirPods Pro 2 (inside Max)

The community is somewhat split on open- vs. closed-back, though there seems to be a general consensus that you get more accurate sound reproduction from either open- and closed-back, non-ANC headphones than those that use ANC. With serious audio companies bringing more and more higher-end (and higher-priced!) ANC offerings to the market in the last couple of years, and the introduction of “lossless” Bluetooth codecs like AptX, this may be shifting. Which of these will work best for you is a matter of personal preference. I tend to default to open-backed for sound quality purposes, but in a loud environment I might use a pair of closed-back or an ANC headphone (my AirPod Pro 2s live in my pocket pretty consistently for a reason).

My third categorization method is connectivity. Headphones can be wired, wireless, or hybrid.

• Wired: wired headphones connect to an amp/source/etc. via, unsurprisingly, a headphone cable.
• Wireless: wireless headphones connect to their source wirelessly. These days this mostly means either Bluetooth or Wifi, though some other protocols exist. When a headphone is running wirelessly, it is playing multiple roles in the signal chain: headphone, amplifier, and DAC.
• Hybrid: hybrid headphones are capable of wireless play, but also have the ability to connect to an amp via a cable. When a hybrid headphone is physically plugged in to an amplifier, it generally turns off its built-in DAC and amplifier stage and behaves more like a passive headphone, though that is not universally true, particularly regarding ANC.

Both the Bosee 700 (left) and AirPods Max (right) are hybrid headphones; both can play from a source if connected by a cable, but both are primarily wireless headphones. The other three are true wireless earbuds, and cannot be connected to a source via a cable.

As mentioned above, most “serious” headphones have mostly been wired. One of the challenges of hybrid headphones is that the drivers in these headphones are generally designed around the in-built DACs and amps, and they may or may not play well with components that were not designed for them. I haven’t encountered a pair of hybrid headphones that I thought sounded particularly good while wired, but your mileage may vary.

[Note: You could also categorize headphones based on whether they’re capable of balanced sound or are solely single-ended, or based on whether their cables are detachable. This is an extra-funky rabbit hole, so I will just say in general I prefer detachable cables (for reasons that will become clear below), and balanced-capable is nice but not a deal breaker at lower price points for me.]

How much should you spend?

You can spend almost however much you want to on headphones, from a couple of bucks all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars on the extreme end. I tend to think of the sweet spot as being between $200-250 new, with diminishing returns kicking in pretty hard after that point. You can get really great headphones (especially in the IEM space) for less than $30, but *most* of the things that I want to listen to start around $100. So particularly if you’re starting out, I’d plan on spending between $100 and $250 on headphones.

Powering headphones

There are two main measurements associated with headphones: impedance and sensitivity. Impedance measures how hard it is for electricity to transmit through a particular pair of headphones, and it’s measured in ohms. Most headphones you’re likely to encounter are somewhere between 30 ohms (easy to drive) and 300 ohms (harder to drive). Sensitivity measures how loud a pair of headphones is for a given level of input power, and it’s generally measured in decibels per milliwatt (dB/mW). Headphones at the entry level seem mostly to live in the 90 – 100 dB/mW region. When we talk about hard to drive headphones, we’re usually talking about high-impedance, low-sensitivity headphones: headphones that require more power from an amplifier to really shine. My personal view is that people often overestimate how much power their headphones need; even with a 300 ohm pair of Sennheiser 650/6XX, I’ve never gotten any of my amp volume knobs past about 11 o’clock.

If you’re curious how much power a given pair of headphones needs, headphones.com has a great calculator available here. As an example, the Drop x. Sennheiser 6XX are a 300 ohm, 103 db/mW headphone, so you need .5 mW of power and .39 V to get to a crazy 100 dB (for reference, the loudest volume most experts recommend you listen to headphones at is 85 dB). For comparison, the relatively easy-to-drive Meze 109 Pros (my personal favorite headphone) at 40 ohms and 112 dB/mW require only .1 mW of power and .05 V to get to 100 dB, or about 1/5th of the 6XX. The Hifiman Edition XS, at 18 ohms and 92 dB/mW, need 6.3 mW and .34 V.

The Sennheiser 6XX

The Hifiman Edition XS

Now that we’re conversant in headphone lingo, let’s talk about the rest of the system.

Amplifier

A Schiit Asgard 2 solid-state amplifier, stacked on a Schiit Bifrost Multibit DAC. Collectively, a Schiit-stack.

Amplifiers, at heart, are devices that take an analog signal and make it louder. Most won’t particularly change the sound, other than making it louder, though some variation definitely occurs, and some amps are designed around giving a particular sound profile (especially tube amps). In the context of audio, amplifiers are usually either power amplifiers (intended to step up a signal to drive loudspeakers), headphone amplifiers (intended to drive headphones), or both. Outside of some pretty weird edge cases, an amplifier with a headphone jack on the front is intended to drive headphones, an amplifier with speaker posts on the back are intended to drive speakers, and an amplifier with both a headphone jack and speaker posts is intended to do both. You can spend as much on an amp as you want to; you can get cheap ones for $10 or $15, or you can spend more than $100,000 for super high-end headphone amplifiers.

The Apos Gremlin, a particularly strange (and really fun!), purely balanced tube amplifier.

When we talk about audio quality, amplifiers do two things: 1) drive higher volumes and 2) provide full support for a particular pair of headphones. I.e, amplification matters, but it’s not the be-all, end-all in audio, and as noted above, even hard-to-drive headphones don’t require that much power. A great amplifier can’t fix a bad pair of headphones, but a bad amplifier can ruin the sound from a great pair of headphones. At least when you’re starting out, any reasonably competent amplifier should do just fine for you, as long as it’s able to output listening levels that you want. Until you start getting headphones in the $250+ range, I’m not sure that you get much benefit from dedicated amplification except for volume purposes. Once you get a pair of quality headphones around that range (or a pair of high-impedance, but high-quality headphones like the 6XX), it’s worth looking at dedicated amplification. Until then, you’re probably fine with the audio out jacks on whatever source you’re using (or, at most, you might get a dongle DAC/amp like the Moondrop Dawn Pro or a USB-C dongle like Apple’s excellent offering).

How much should I spend on an amplifier?

My rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t buy a dedicated amplifier until you have headphones in the $200-250 range, and then you shouldn’t spend more than about half as much on an amplifier as you spent on the headphones, unless you’re trying to get some specific capability (like balanced outputs, or a specific combination of inputs, or a specific form factor).[6]

A Schiit Jotunheim 2, a modern solid-state headphone amplifier capable of both balancd (XLR) and single-ended (6.5 mm) playback. Stacked on top of a Schiit Modius DAC. Together, a pretty good stack of Schiit.

[There’s a whole world out there of people arguing about balanced vs. unbalanced amplification. It’s beyond the scope of this post, so I won’t wade into it except to note that I used to think balanced was nonsense, but recent experiences have convinced me that in some specific instances with some specific headphones, balanced systems may have some advantages to my ears, personally. And with Moondrop making a $50 balanced DAC/amp … check it out if you have the cables for it and a headphone capable of it (or buy a $20 set on Amazon for shits and giggles).]

Digital-to-Analog Converters, aka DACs

DACs are the devices that take digital files (one and zeros) and turn them into audio waves that can be reproduced by speakers or headphones. Anytime you are listening to any music from any digital source (CDs, computer files, streaming services, etc.) there’s a DAC somewhere in the signal chain. A lot of consumer-grade devices have them built in, including CD players, smartphones and tablets, Bluetooth headphones, computers, TVs, etc. There also a whole market of dedicated, standalone DACs and DAC/amp hybrids.

Examples of dongle DACS: (from left to right) the ALO Audio Pilot I ($100), the Audioquest Dragonfly Red ($150), the Apple USB-C dongle ($9), and the Moondrop Dawn Pro ($50). Any of these is going to be pretty good for you in the early stages, if not overkill.

There are people who will tell you that the right DAC is like listening to a chorus of angels singing you straight to heaven. There are also people (including a bunch of Redditors) who will tell you that no human can hear any difference between any two DACs. They’re both a bit nonsense. When I did repeated blind testing between a $10 Apple Dongle DAC, a $129 Schiit Modi, and a $599 Schiit Bifrost Multibit (original version; I paid substantially below MSRP years ago), I consistently ranked them Modi > Apple > Bifrost. I can tell the difference, and I’m pretty sure if I set up my testing rig again, you would be able to as well. It’s not that subtle.

That said, it’s also not a huge difference. The Apple dongle is a surprisingly good DAC, and it’s why I generally wouldn’t recommend worrying about the DAC you’re using until you get to the $250+ range with your headphones. Even my most expensive headphones sound REALLY good via the Apple DAC, and I would argue that some midrange headphones actually sound better with cheaper DACs. The best sound I’ve ever gotten out of my beloved 6XXs is with a $50 Moondrop dongle DAC/amp running balanced, and I have been listening to my most recent headphone acquisition almost exclusively with the Apple dongle just because it’s the only way I can use a particular amp that I want to play with.

My rule of thumb for DACs is that you shouldn’t buy a dedicated DAC beyond an Apple dongle until you reach the $250 range on headphones, and then you shouldn’t spend more than a third to half of the cost of your headphones, UNLESS you’re chasing a particular feature, form factor, etc.[7]

Source (streamer or turntable/cassette deck)

The source is what reads the media and transmits it to the amplifier or DAC for decoding/amplification. If you’re reading this kind of guide, your source is probably either a smart device like a phone or a computer. When you start looking at better-resolving systems that aren’t dependent on phones or computers, sources tend to be more dedicated streamers like a Bluesound Node, a Wiim Pro/Ultra, a Raspberry Pi rigged as a streamer, etc.

Examples of some sources: a vintage Kyocera CD transport (bottom), a 3rd Generation Apple TV (top left), and a Comcast streaming box (top right).

Your source really, really doesn’t matter until you get far enough down this rabbit hole to not be reading this guide. I’m pretty far down this rabbit hole and pretty much all of my headphones setups are being driven by either Macs or Windows machines, and occasionally an iPhone (new or old). There is an argument about bit-perfect that some people like to have, but honestly any competent streaming device is going to get you what you need until you get into crazy money systems. Don’t spend money on a high-quality source; use what you have unless everything you have is terrible. I stand by my previous recommendation that if you need a CD player for a setup, go to the nearest Goodwill and buy a DVD player from a competent manufacturer like Sony, Yamaha, Panasonic, etc. Shouldn’t cost you more than $20.

[The one thing I will note is that some devices don’t play well with off-board DACs; for example, my Schiit DACs have a high-pitched reverb on some instruments when connected to a PC via optical cable, but that’s easily solved by connecting via USB. If something sounds off, Google and Reddit are your friends.]

Media

If you’re building an analog system, well … your choices are vinyl, cassettes, or 8-tracks. Not a lot of choices there, so …

There are broadly two kinds of streaming media: 1) lossy (compressed files that discard some parts of an audio signal in order to produce smaller files) and 2) ‘lossless,’ which purports to encode the entirety of an audio signal for reproduction. In audio, lossless usually equates to at least CD quality. This also gets real complicated, real quick, when you start looking at the different bit-rates, codecs (system for encoding, compressing, and transmitting audio signals), the various “hi-res” methods, MQA, etc. For your purposes, the options are really twofold: lossy (.mp3s, Spotify, low-res Apple) or lossless (CDs, .flac, Tidal/Qboz/Deezer/Apple lossless, etc.).

There’s a contingent on the internet that will tell you that human beings cannot hear the difference between lossy and lossless. They’re just … wrong. Flatly wrong. I know that I can hear it because for some reason, when I set up my streaming service in my house, I inadvertently copied over a bunch of old (lossy) .mp3s into my system, and every time one pops up on shuffle, I can immediately tell that something is wrong. If you’re curious about your ability to hear the difference, NPR has a great quick quiz for you to find out available here. A couple of caveats: 1) your ability to hear the difference is dependent on a highly-enough resolving system to be able to hear the difference (if you’re listening via Bluetooth, for example, Bluetooth’s inherent compression will eliminate the difference), and 2) you’re way more likely to be able to hear the difference on a track that you know well (or at least an artist or genre you’re familiar with).

Tidal is my preferred lossless streaming service, though I also use Apple Music lossless when I'm away from my home or have limited bandwidth.

My personal bias is that it’s always worth paying for lossless. I’ve been a Tidal subscriber for almost five years, and I have really enjoyed Apple’s free upgrade to lossless (and spatial audio, but we’ll get to that a bit later). Spotify is also a pretty awful service in a lot of ways, and if you’re using it, consider switching to something a little less shitty to artists. If you’re only ever streaming from a phone or a computer, I’d recommend Apple Music, especially if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. It’s got a great catalog, a reasonable price, and it’s super easy to use from those kinds of devices. But; while Apple Music is a great service, they’re pretty committed to not playing well with others so the only major audio company it interacts with is Sonos, which has its own limitations. If you’re Roon-curious, or  want to be able to interact with prosumer systems like Bluesound, you might want to bite the bullet and try out Tidal.

Interconnects

The right cables will make it sound like God is singing directly in your ears!

Not really. I tend to use the cheapest reputable cable I can get when I need a new cable. Schiit Audio famously used to specifically recommend using a cheap printer cable when connecting computers to their DACs. In my reasonably expensive home hifi rack, almost everything is running with Amazon Basic RCA cables, though I have a few random nice cables that I’ve picked up at my local hifi shop on mega sale (they seem to put a lot of their Audioquest cables on 75% off every year or two and I admit to being mildly snake-oil-curious). Honestly … never noticed a difference between a $4.99 Amazon cable and a $100 (at retail) Audioquest, though doing a true blind A/B would be hard.

Buy cheap interconnects until they’re a problem.

Headphone cables

Headphone cables come in a lot of different configurations. There are a number of kinds of plugs/jacks, but the most common are 1/8” audio jacks (used for most consumer electronic devices, known in the audio world as 3.5 mm) and 1/4" audio jacks (for most audiophile gear and AV receivers, also known as 6.5 mm). There are also several kinds of balanced headphone cables, primarily XLR and 4.4 mm. Headphone cables may also be fixed (permanently attached to the headphones) or detachable (able to be removed and easily replaced). In general, all of your headphones should come with their own cables and unless they’re incredibly cheap headphones, the OEM cables should mostly be fine for your purposes.

That said, when I bought my Meze 109 Pros, I ordered a custom-made XLR headphone cable from Hart Audio Cables because they’re supposed to be really good. And they are beautifully made and built, but I honestly can’t hear a difference between the $80 cable I got from them and the $20 one I got from Amazon.

The biggest difference between headphone cables and interconnects as a category is the frequency with which you will interact with them. Using headphones is an exercise in headphone cable management, and a cheap or bad cable can be microphonic; i.e. it touching or rubbing against the wrong surface may transmit vibrations (aka sound) into the headphones in a genuinely unpleasant way. You’re also likely to spend time tangling, detangling, and coiling headphone cables in a way that you don’t with other kinds of cables, and cheap cables can make all of this so much more unpleasant. So when it comes to headphone cables, I say either live with the OEM -or- buy cables based on features and comfort, not purported audio quality. For example, that custom Hart Audio Cable? It’s braided and sheathed, so it hangs nicely, doesn’t make any noise, doesn’t tangle, and coils nicely. Unlike the OEM cable that came with my Focal Elex, which is stiff and difficult to coil or drape, or the one that came with my 99 Noirs which is so microphonic that it drowns out the music every time I move my head. My Hart cable is also in a lovely set of University of Oregon colors, and came with an adapter kit to make it work with everything from XLR to 4.4 mm to 3.5 mm to 6.5 mm. It’s pretty great.[8]

Top row: OEM cables from Hifiman, Focal, MEze, and Hifiman
Bottom row: aftermarket cables ranging from $20 to almost $200. Unless you know the headphone cable market, you probably wouldn't be able to guess which is which with a lot of accuracy. 

Do I think it makes a difference in the sound I hear? Nah. But does it improve the quality of life with the headphones? Hell yes. I feel good about that purchase. (Of course, most of these things are also true of my $20 Amazon cables. YMMV.)

A Brief Digression on Bluetooth

I like to shit on Bluetooth as a music protocol. And that’s because, by and large, it’s a pretty terrible one. It’s like trying to force a creek into a very small culvert going under a road: it’s fine for small water flows, but rapidly becomes a problem when the amount of water goes up. Have you ever used a Bluetooth headset for a phone call and noticed that one ear goes silent? Or connected a headset to a PC and noticed two different headphones in your speaker options (one stereo, the other talk?). That’s because Bluetooth is barely able to transmit enough data for a compressed stereo signal; if the connection also needs to transmit your voice connection back to the source, it has to drop one of the stereo channels and go mono. That’s fine in the context of a phone call, as you don’t need or want stereo sound in a conversation, but it’s suboptimal for music, and a demonstration of the limitations of Bluetooth.

What does this mean for music? Basically that you traditionally couldn’t transmit anything other than highly-compressed, lossy sound files via Bluetooth. This is gradually shifting as companies are introducing codecs and compression systems that purport to be truly lossless. I’m generally skeptical, but haven’t had a chance to play with them myself. As a result, to me, wired still trumps wireless in terms of audio quality, albeit not convenience. I used to be more of a wired headphone snob, but I’ve spent enough time now with the AirPods Pro 2 to be confident you can get a pretty good sound out of the right Bluetooth system. Still not lossless, though.

Conclusion:

Welcome to the rabbit hole! It’s expensive, and confusing, and occasionally frustrating, but also a lot of fun. For me, nothing compares to the experience of throwing on a song I’ve heard a thousand times before and actually hearing something new in the mix, and headphones are the place I get that experience most often.

So, here are my general guidelines for building a headfi system:

1) Until you’re spending around $250, you’re better off putting your money into a better pair of headphones than into a dedicated DAC/amp. The outputs on your source, or a $10 Apple USB-C dongle should serve you well.[9] At most, snag a $50 Moondrop Dawn Pro or another inexpensive dongle DAC/amp.

2) Once you hit the $250 mark (maybe $200 if you’re talking something like the 6XX), it’s probably worth investing in a standalone amplifier and/or DAC.

a. I wouldn’t spend more on an amplifier than about half of what you spent on your headphones, unless you’re seeking a specific feature or features.

b. I wouldn’t spend more on a DAC than a third to half of what you spent on your headphones, UNLESS you’re seeking a particular feature set.

c. Combined DAC/amps can be a great value, but generally: 1) I don’t like the DAC stages as much as a standalone DAC and 2) you end up with less flexibility or superfluous chips/failure points if you plug another DAC into the amp’s analog inputs.

d. Don’t be afraid to use a cheap DAC with a decent amp, or great headphones with cheap amps and DACs [I’m currently running a $9 Apple dongle into a $230 Magnius, and listening to an $1100 pair of headphones with a $200 cable on them, and it’s pretty great.]

3) Don’t upgrade headphone cables for sound quality reasons; stick with the basics unless you’re seeking a specific feature or capability (or the OEMs are annoying you).

4) Use the cheapest connector cables made by reputable manufacturers you can find.

5) Ignore these guidelines if you’re having fun.[10]

Go forth and have fun!

Audio Shops I recommend in the PNW:

• Desco Audio and Video (Olympia, WA). Great shop a mile up the hill from my house. Decent selection of used stuff and things on consignment, and a good mix of new stuff from the reasonably priced to the VERY expensive. Also do custom installation for high-end systems and they have a good reputation for that. I’ve bought several pairs of speakers, some Bluesound gear, some used gear from the owner, and good Salamander hifi racks and cabinets from them.
• Gig Harbor Audio (Gig Harbor, WA). This is one of the more interesting stores I’ve been into. A great variety of new and used gear (with the used gear mostly listed online quite nicely). Also has an interesting selection of imported wine and does wine tastings. Well worth a visit. Everything from inexpensive, entry level gear to top-end audiophile stuff. I’ve bought a couple pairs of speakers and a couple integrated amplifiers from him. He’ll spend time with you to walk through your use case and help you find something that fits you and your budget. He’ll also generally setup almost anything you want to audition and give you time and control to experiment (I ended up listening to probably 30 tracks before I bought my used Devialet super-integrated from him). [Also, every time I go in there he’s playing an album I either end up buying or downloading later. Great and eclectic taste in music.]
• Hawthorne Stereo (Seattle, WA). Great hifi shop that’s been a staple in the Seattle scene for decades. I have a pair of speakers in my closet that my dad bought there for my mom in the late 70s. Huge selection of new and used, and a great interface online for looking at used gear. One of the strongest appeals of moving to Seattle is easier access to this shop.
• Fred’s Sound of Music (Portland, OR). Another old-school hifi shop in the Hawthorne district in Portland. This is where I bought my first receiver and speakers (Boston Acoustics CR65s), and I try to make time to stop in whenever I can. Pretty decent selection and very accommodating to buyers who want to audition gear.
• Campfire Audio (Portland, OR). This is worth a trip just to see what they have to offer. Campfire is our very own, local, world-class IEM manufacturer making great headphones in Laurelhurst. Make an appointment a day or two ahead of time if you can, but they were able to accommodate me when I dropped by on a whim. Bring your phone and an adapter, or use theirs, and they’ll let you listen to most of their line, current and past. Some of them are wild—unlike a lot of IEM manufacturers that default to the same couple of tunings, Campfire makes some pretty weird and awesome stuff.

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[1] Adapted from the Whiskey Tribe’s rule #1: “The "best" whisk(e)y is the whiskey you like to drink, the way you like to drink it.”

[2] As an example, I spent years thinking that my Schiit Bifrost/Asgard 2 stack was broken because it sounded terrible… then I eventually realized that my beloved 6XX just don’t play well with it. The Bifrost/Asgard sounds lovely with most of my headphones.

[3] Headphones, earphones, earbuds, etc.

[4] Mostly; there are a small number of headphones that are capable of receiving digital signals via a digital cable, but they’re a tiny fraction of the field. They can be identified by their lack of an analog connector on their wire.

[5] Unless you’re doing some advanced stuff, like Digital Signals Processing (or “DSP”).

[6] As proof that I’m not just spouting off here, my most expensive amplifier is the Schiit Jotunheim 2, which retails at $399 without an on-board DAC. I bought it when I ordered my Meze 109 Pro, which retail at $799. I will say that the Jotunheim sounds great with *most* of my headphones, but really only the 109 Pros and the Arya Stealth get the full benefit of that amplifier.

[7] Walking the walk: the most expensive DAC I own is the Schiit Bifrost multibit, which I bought on closeout for $225 in 2020. I almost never use it; I don’t love the way it sounds with anything other than an Asgard 2, and only with certain headphones even then. I also have a Modius, which retails at $229, which I do use regularly, which is about a third of retail on my favorite pairs of headphones. I get the most use out of a $129 Modi and a $100 Fulla E DAC/amp.

[8] Quick note: this shouldn’t matter for you, but while you can use a converter to plug balanced cables into a single-ended system, you cannot/should not plug single-ended headphones into a balanced system. Bad things will happen to your equipment.

[9] The exception may be a pair of particularly high-impedance headphone like a 6XX or the 250 Ohm version of a DT 990 Pro or DT 770 Pro; the 6XX is high enough sensitivity that it runs fine at the volumes I listen to with an Apple dongle, and if you buy the 990/770, just get the 80 ohm version.

[10] I have a very expensive custom cable arriving soon with a pair of ZMF Bokeh Closed that are currently being built, because 1) they’re fun, 2) they were a Christmas present, and 3) I’m curious.