low vs high impendance headphones

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Uncle Jim

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
318
hi all and everyone, I am new to this vibrant place, please bear with me if my question has been answered many times already, could not find it :(
Can someone tell me what is the deal with low/high impedance headphones?
I understand high impedance ones may need an external amp to be driven while low impedance work with standard headphone out on any soundcard or CD/mp3 player.
But what do I get with high impedance heaphones? What`s so much better about them?
Thanks in advance for any enlightening contributions :)
 
hi uncle jim,
here's a good link for gobs of headphone info:
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/

low impedence cans(80 ohm or less) are easy to drive via sound card, ipod, etc.
high impedence you will need an amp to get the cans to perform to their potential.

i have a set of 64 and 250 ohm cans. i also have a tube headphone amp with 3 settings...32, 300, and 600 ohms. they 64 ohm cans are a horrible match with my tube amp as they are very sensitive to noise and low freq hum(sounds like i'm standing next to a power transformer). however, the 250 ohms are dead quite on the amp.

the 64 ohmers worked great with onboard sound...very loud, very little buzzing. i can not compare sound quality between the 2 as there is nothing to compare...the tube amp is far superior and the best sounding music i have ever heard.

check out head-fi. those guys live for headphones.
 
With high-imp headphones, you generally get a "blacker" background. They aren't as sensitive to the cleanliness of the power or other noise causing affects in soundcards and power systems. Also, though not a problem with soundcards, they are a lot less likely to blow a driver or armature if inadvertently plugged into a hot slot.
 
Usually you dont want to mix low impedance output with hight impedance headphone. BUT.this is not 100% true. I rememeber when i used 64 Ohms Sennheiser 570 phones, and those were much harder to drive than the newer 120 Ohm Sennheiser 595...so it depends.Try and compare !
 
zoinks said:
hi uncle jim,
here's a good link for gobs of headphone info:
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/

low impedence cans(80 ohm or less) are easy to drive via sound card, ipod, etc.
high impedence you will need an amp to get the cans to perform to their potential.
Click to expand...


That is generally true except for battery powered devices and sound cards. They typically don't have enough current capability to drive low impedances less than 30-40 Ohms, so you get complaints of distorted bass and etc at volume, where mid to low (60-80 Ohm) impedance headphones will do fine with no distortion.

If you want accuracy, high impedance and an amp are great, but for computers...mid impedance is usually the best.
 
okay thanks a lot for all the replies,
I see for PC and portable audio 60-100Ohm interval is the best option although if I had headphone amp high impedence ones would be better.
Btw. head-fiers are over the top, beyond my level of comprehension sometimes ;)
 
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