Headphone monitoring is made easier with the Cedar Audio HDA (£495), a digital 6-way headphone amplifier that lets you monitor audio directly on headphones without using additional converter stages and cabling.

Ideal for use with the company's audio restoration and noise suppression systems, the HDA receives an AES / EBU or SPDIF digital input signal and converts it to six individually buffered, ¼-inch TRS stereo headphone outputs, each with its own volume control.

The 1U rackmount HDA has a single, balanced XLR socket for the AES / EBU input, a single unbalanced phono connector for the SPDIF input, and a button on the rear panel for selecting between the two. According to Cedar, de-emphasis is also available and, if selected, will decode 50 / 15 μs emphasis when indicated by the status bits in the incoming audio data. Its support for all standard sample rates up to 96 kHz and its dynamic range of >100 dB makes it suitable for a wide range of uses in post- and pro-audio.