Headphone amp?

[wizbri]

I'm confident (hopeful, at any rate) that my girlfriend is getting me a nice pair of studio headphones for Christmas, as requested.

I do my recording work on PC. So here's my dumb newbie question: What do I need to get the best sound out of these fancy cans? I hear a lot about headphone amps, but wouldn't know how to incorporate one into my fairly simple PC setup. (As it stands now, I plug my Sony's into the headphone jack on the computer speakers. Not ideal...)

Any advice/recommendations? Thanks!

 

[drstawl]

Plug your line out into a consumer receiver (I use a SONY) line in and use the headphone outs from that. I've also tried the headphone outs from my standalone CDRW with great success. Another option is the headphone outs on a decent mixer. The headphone out circuit on my A&H console rocks.
Get a pair of SONY MDR-7506 headphones and you're in business. These will allow you to use a wider range of equipment to drive them than other cans because of their inherent efficiency. Most headphone circuits sound like crap when you drive them to the edge just to make them audible.