Note: I wrote this over 5 years ago. Technology has changed and we have better options today. Update: http://mclements.net/blogWP/index.php/2023/02/23/a-cheap-audiophile-headphone-system-2/

Here’s a cheap audiophile quality sound system:

• A computer that takes standard PCI cards
• An ESI Juli@ sound card
• A Corda Jazz headphone amp

That’s it. Connect the Juli@ unbalanced analog outputs to the amp’s inputs. Play your CDs, DVDs, whatever on the computer. Use whatever headphones you want.

Total cost: $510 = $170 for the card, $340 for the amp. Plus the headphones. You can get some vintage Sennheiser HD-580 or HD-600 on eBay for a couple hundred bucks. Or you can go all-in with a really nice set of headphones like the Audeze LCD. The Corda Jazz has a smooth sound, detailed and sweet yet neutral, with enough power to  drive almost any headphone on the planet.

I use this as a secondary system to drive my Audeze LCD-2F when my reference system is unavailable. It is amazing – 95% as good as the reference system. Extreme treble and large ensemble complex music is not quite as refined, but that’s just picking nits because it sounds damn good.

Years ago when I was in college I would have climbed a mountain of broken glass for sound like this, especially at this price.

Note: you can get an audio system like this even cheaper from JDS Labs. Get a single DAC+Amp for $300, so you don’t need the sound card. Just stream the bits from the USB port of any computer into the DAC. JDS Labs is the American version of Jan Meier’s Corda in Germany: a few guys in Illinois who are good electrical engineers and take a non-nonsense approach to building audiophile quality gear without audiophile prices or bullshit. That said, my ears say Meier’s gear has the advantage over JDS. Both have excellent specs but Meier’s stuff is subtly sweeter and more refined.