AmperHeads exists to answer one question well: which amplifier actually suits your headphones? This page explains exactly how every recommendation on the site is produced, so you can judge how much weight to give it.
The short version
AmperHeads pages are research-based recommendations, not hands-on reviews. We don’t run a listening room, we don’t own a measurement rig, and we don’t audition the products we write about. Every page is built from five things you can check yourself:
- Power and voltage math from the published specs.
- Measurements published by Audio Science Review, RTINGS and the manufacturers.
- Owner and forum consensus, read across years of posts and dated.
- A product-status check: is it still sold, what does it cost today, what replaced it.
- A clear rating rubric that scores those inputs, not our ears.
The pages are written by the site’s editor under the pen name Elliot Marsh (editor profile ).
1. Power and voltage math (every pairing)
Most “does it need an amp?” advice online is vague. The arithmetic isn’t. Each headphone in a pairing guide gets a power budget calculated from its published specs:
- Target level: 110 dB SPL peaks. That is loud, dynamic music with headroom; typical listening sits around 75–85 dB.
- Inputs: manufacturer impedance and sensitivity (dB/mW or dB/V), converted to a common unit where the spec sheet uses the other one.
- Outputs: the voltage (V RMS), current (mA) and power (mW) needed to hit the target level.
- Amp check: the amp’s rated output into that impedance has to clear the requirement with about 6 dB of headroom, and its output impedance should be under 1/8 of the headphone’s impedance for low-impedance dynamic headphones.
Amps that fail the math are excluded, however popular they are. This step is where most of the site’s value comes from: it is why a 300 Ω Sennheiser needs voltage, a planar needs current, and a 32 Ω closed-back usually needs neither.
2. Published measurements
Where a page describes frequency response, distortion, noise or output power, the figures come from published third-party measurements, mainly Audio Science Review and RTINGS, or from the manufacturer’s own spec sheet. We name the source in the article where a specific figure matters, we never present someone else’s measurement as ours, and we never invent numbers. If no reliable measurement exists, the page says so instead of guessing.
3. Owner and forum consensus
Measurements don’t cover everything: comfort over a long session, how a headband holds up after three years, whether a volume pot develops channel imbalance at low levels. For those we read owner reports on r/headphones, Head-Fi and the ASR forums, looking for patterns repeated across many owners and several years rather than single posts. Pages that rely on this say “owners report” or “forum consensus” and give the month it was checked. When owners disagree, the page says that too.
Sound descriptions on review pages (“warm”, “a treble peak around 8–10 kHz”, “lean bass”) are a summary of published frequency-response graphs plus that owner consensus. They are not personal listening notes.
4. Product-status check
Prices and availability move faster than reviews. Before a page is updated we check whether the product is still in the manufacturer’s lineup, what it sells for (street price, plus list price where the gap matters), and whether a successor has replaced it. The result is stored in one product file that drives the buy buttons, the “discontinued, buy this instead” notices and the “best current amp” boxes, each with a checked date. Pages show the date prices were last checked. We describe prices as approximate street or list prices, because retailer prices change daily.
If a product is discontinued or superseded, the page says so at the top and points to the current alternative. We keep the old page because people still search for it, and because the used market is often the smartest buy.
5. Ratings: what the stars mean
Each review carries a 1–5 rating. It is one editor’s research-based score, not an aggregate of user reviews and not the result of personal testing. It is calculated from this rubric:
| Weight | Criterion | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Technical performance | Published measurements: frequency response against common targets, distortion, noise, channel matching, output power |
| 25% | Value at today’s street price | What the same money buys elsewhere in October 2026, new and used |
| 15% | Power and pairing flexibility | How easy it is to drive or to pair, from the power math in section 1 |
| 15% | Build, comfort and serviceability | Owner reports over years: failures, comfort complaints, replaceable pads, cables and parts |
| 10% | Availability and support | Still sold, easy to buy, warranty and spare parts, or discontinued and used-only |
How to read the score:
- 4.5 and up: a default recommendation in its class at its current price.
- 4.0–4.4: a strong choice with one clear trade-off (needs an amp, narrow use case, price has crept up).
- 3.5–3.9: good, but something else usually serves the same buyer better.
- Under 3.5: we wouldn’t recommend it at its current price.
Because availability and value are part of the score, ratings can move when a product is discontinued or its price changes, even if the product itself hasn’t.
6. Photos
Product images are manufacturer or retailer press images. We don’t photograph units in hand because we don’t have them.
7. Freshness
Every article shows a Published and Updated date. High-traffic pages are re-checked at least quarterly, and the “Updated” date only changes when the content actually changed.
8. Affiliate links and independence
AmperHeads earns a commission on some purchases made through retailer links, mainly Amazon. That never decides which product is recommended: several top picks on this site (Schiit, JDS Labs) sell direct with no affiliate program, and we link to them untagged. Full details: how AmperHeads earns money .
9. Corrections
If we got a spec, a price or a pairing wrong, or a product has been replaced, tell us . Owners’ reports are exactly the evidence this method runs on, so they are welcome. Articles are updated and the change is dated.
Written and maintained by the AmperHeads editor, publishing as Elliot Marsh.