Is there a reason for amps besides making the sound more loud?

It can give you more precise control over how and waht you hear.

You can buy headphone amps with EQs, balance control and presets for it's settings.

You can buy pre-amps simply for their signature pre-amp sound. I would imagine that a Neve or SSl headphone pre-amp, much like a Neve or SSL mic-pre-amp would sound incredible!

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You may also need headphone amps for high impedence headphones like the sennheiser hd-600. Otherwise most stereos won't be able to supply enough power to drive them.

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Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot. He who laughs last thinks slowest!

Sound quality.

One of my fellow students studying sound engineering built a headphone amp in electronics as his final project. This gave him the ability to plug in up to four pairs of headphones into the one amp and get line level into each set of cans. No need for a splitter and a loss in sound quality. Think i'll build one next year for myself.

From the reasons to use a headphone amp that u guys provided, I still don't think it outweights the cost of buying one.

Buying one ok, but as a student we get the parts for free and extra credits for building said item. Also as a bonus we get taught the workings of said amplifiers and other stuff which your average lehman dj/producer may not....