I treated myself to some new earphones after my I lost my Denon AHC560R during my house move (though I recall some damage to the cord at some point). I bought these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/V-MODA-Modern- ... I9HS4?th=1

But is there any value in adding a portable amplifier? I plan to really only use the earphones with my iPhone 6S, or my laptop.

It's worth trying one of the Fiio Q1 (which has a built in DAC too) I'd say. Whilst it's not a hard and fast rule, as general advice I wouldn't recommend spending more than the price of the headphones on the amp, you'd be better off with better headphones in those circumstances.

What format / bit rate is your music saved at, that can make a huge difference to the sound quality.

I should probably add that I've never even heard of VModa so no idea how good those headphones are / aren't.

Yup I'd encountered Fiio in a review but a different model. There's a few of them about.


320kbps but iPhone so M4A or whatever Apple use. I used to use FLAC loads on the laptop but hated having an album in both formats and I was running out of space.


Neither had I. It was something I came across whilst having a look for a replacement for the Denons on Amazon and I had a look up in head-fi which had positive reviews. Impulse purchase.