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[marcusturle]

I'm considering purchasing a DAC/headphone amp wondered whether people feel adding one will make a noticeable difference to sound quality.

I would use it with a MacBook Pro (late 2013 model) with JRiver MC20; and also with an iPhone 6. All music is either lossless (FLAC and ALAC) or mp3 320kps or higher.

I have Westone W40 headphones.

I don't have a particular budget, but would be reluctant to spend more than £200 - 300.  Am currently leaning towards the Oppo HA-2 which seems to have had good reviews and is compact and portable.

[csimon]

IMO an external DAC or soundcard is almost certainly better than onboard audio in terms of noise and interference, but whether you can hear the difference or you think the difference is worth the money is quite subjective. There are certainly cheaper DACs and USB soundcards, also more expensive ones. I tend to find reviews of DACs in specialist publications heap superlatives on the sound quality in proportion with the cost of the unit, so I take reviews with a pinch of salt!  I think I just look for any signs of "bad things" that are pointed out.

Everyone's mileage may vary!

[mwillems]

I currently use a combination O2/ODAC.  It's a nice low distortion DAC, coupled with a very powerful low-noise headphone amplifier.  And it's  in your price range.  It's available from several distributors (as portions of the design is open source), but I got mine here:  https://www.jdslabs.com/products/48/o2-odac-combo-revb/

You unlikely to find a a DAC/AMP combo with better electrical specs for the price, but it won't play DSD or 192KHz if that's important to you (it tops out at 96/24).  By comparison, it's has slightly better distortion measurements than the Oppo, much lower output impedance, and about twice as much output power.