When you mention: > Thus, once you have a set of nice headphones, you do need some kind of amplified output for them. Why do you need an amplifier for your good headphones? Are you using an amplifier for equalization purposes? I have a Philips SBC HP800 for 5+ years now, and I find absolutely no need to keep volume at a high setting --- and that's on my laptop output, which is a Whatever Sound Card (Intel HDA). I do miss my SoundBlaster MP3+, but right now that's what I have. Most of the time I have the volume at 50%--60%. Up to about 80% when listening to Dream Theater or when the surroundings are noisy. On favorite songs, I will push to 90% or 95% for the duration. 100% is reserved for those favorite solos, for a couple minutes at most. On certain songs, I would barely hear the fire alarm if it sounded and the volume was 90% or more. And no, these headphones don't have noise canceling. With these headphones, OggVorbis (http://xiph.org/vorbis/) or FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) becomes a priority. Investing on top-notch headphones to listen to MP3 is kind of throwing money away.