JDS Labs Atom review: The 100$ audio microscope.
(A bit of copy-pasting here, I had this amp for one year, but I thought it would help if I’d put my thoughts and ramblings in one cohesive review)
I originally bought this amp mainly for my T50RPs, after discovering my old Note 3 was not powerful enough for these (lol). And yup, that’s what these needed. Holy effing bass. Extended, powerful, intense… skull-shaking bass if you want. And not only with planars.
Maybe this amp should just be called a “depth/width and detail multiplier”. As my first headphone amp, it added depth and width (soundstage) to everything. I’ll use “transparency” the wrong way here, but, I was about to say “transparency” instead of “depth”, because every sound… has its own space now. So… instrument separation?
I also have the the sAp-1 amp, which is “technically Class A” (a 270mW Class A headphone amp). In comparison, it lacks treble (male/female voices high notes, high guitar notes etc.) And above all lacks soundstage. It… just does not give you soundstage, compared to the Atom. But it sounds reaaally smooth. I could say the same for the Liquid Spark, but it would be really disrespectful to the Liquid Spark, lol. Liquid Spark is an in-between, but way better than the sAp-1.
Originally, I was just double-amping my AVR with the Atom, because I had no other choice. And still, this amp made the same thing it does with a desktop DAC. Even without a DAC, this amp will just… find every tiny detail it can and amp it. The JDS Atom amplifier is a horizontal soundstage, vertical soundstage, depth and detail multiplier. Still, “garbage in, garbage out”. Plugged into my no-name motherboards’ sound card, music sounded… empty and soulless, lol. It’s like you’re amping the void. You can’t amp detail that’s not there! 
But when you’ll find a good source… you’ll know it. Atom is a great name for this product, and maybe that was the idea all along, because the JDS Labs Atom is a 100$ audio microscope.
A good source:
As my first desktop DAC, I had the Sanskrit 10th last month, and I must say I was really, really impressed by this pairing. For, like, 200$, the JDS Atom amp + Sanskrit 10th DAC combo will give you a taste of what audiophiles with 1000$+ dacs, amps and headphones talk about when they say “holographic” and “3D” environment. Hell, even using my PS3 as a source (CD Player, RCA out), I got into this “audio uncanny valley” where “everything sounds real but Sublime is not playing in my room”. So, yeah… this sounds a bit more thrilling than “this DAC/amp combo sounds clean”, huh! Especially for 200$, lol.
If you want that “AKM warmth” (bass and mids emphasized), but all the detail, no “mud” whatsoever (mud… huh, let’s translate that to “no hard to decipher mids and low-mids whatsoever”), but also need coax or optical or… something that shows the Khz (the JDS Atom DAC has an AKM chipset, but does not give you coax/optical or a sample rate indicator), the Sanskrit 10th paired with a JDS Atom amplifer is a great choice. And the Sanskrit 10th is also available in blue and red! 
Warnings:
Be careful about this tiny little plastic “gain” button switch. Unlike the Liquid Spark switch, which is pretty much useless (only adds a few decibels), this switch multiplies the volume. Example:
Also, I’ve been told the JDS Atom amp got standard protection against static schocks, but to be sure, if you unplug RCA cables: Get rid of the planar headphones you have on your head, ground yourself somewhere, and then unplug the RCA cables. Otherwise, I grilled mine after touching the RCA ins. I learned the hard way that planar headphones are static schock amplifiers. Did I had to buy another one? No way: I sent em an e-mail, and in one hour they replied to me saying “yes it’s on warranty, send it back to (address including RMA number)”. Excellent customer service.
Final thoughts:
Maybe being an “audiophile” is wayyy cheaper than I thought, after all. 