bradley26 said:
both if possible, but if not then better sound quality is more important to me.
thanks for the relpay.
There are a number of amps under £90 or so, such as the FiiO models, that ought to be good for increased volume at least. The trick with low-cost DAC's are they usually work only from USB input, from a desktop or laptop computer. You probably would want a combined DAC and headphone amp, unless you want to invest in really top quality gear costing hundreds of £ for the DAC and more hundreds for the amp. Whether a combo or separates, you need to check the amount of gain that the amp provides. For example, the tiny and very low cost FiiO amp(s) may not have enough gain to justify purchasing. I would guess at least 10 db gain would be minimum, which you'll get with a DAC/amp combo probably. A separate headphone amp is tricky, because in some cases you might not get better sound quality unless you have a "true line out" to feed the amp, which music players and desktop/laptop computers usually don't have. That's something the DAC does provide (or should).