Class AB headphone driver with DirectDrive®
The MAX9722AEUE+ is a Class AB stereo headphone amplifier from the DirectDrive® series, delivering 130 mW per channel into a 32 Ω load — enough to drive consumer and pro-audio headphones cleanly without an external DC-blocking capacitor on the output.
Integrated protection and pop-free shutdown
On-chip short-circuit and thermal protection guard the output stage against a miswired headphone jack or sustained overload — the amplifier folds back before the die temperature exceeds the safe operating area. The depop feature suppresses the turn-on thump that would otherwise hit the earpiece, so the output mute is clean at power-up and shutdown. Differential inputs reject common-mode noise picked up on the audio signal traces, which is useful when the source is a codec or DAC with a differential output stage.
16-TSSOP footprint and supply rails
Housed in a 16-TSSOP (4.40 mm wide, 0.65 mm pitch), the part fits on a two-layer board with reasonable fan-out — the narrow pitch keeps the layout compact for a portable audio PCB. The supplier device package is also 16-TSSOP, so no footprint mismatch between the order code and the land pattern. Supply decoupling should follow the typical application circuit: a 1 µF ceramic close to each supply pin, with the output coupling caps omitted thanks to the DirectDrive® architecture that generates a virtual ground internally.