Headphones and impedence

[xtknight]

I'm in the market for headphones and have little to no electrical engineering background. It's my understanding that higher-impedance headphones can not produce as loud as a sound as their lower-impedance counterparts (when driven by the same device).

Are there other factors I should be looking at? Will 62 ohm headphones definitely be half(?) as loud as 32 ohm ones? "Half" was just a guess, what is the relationship between ohms and dB?

I have an Audigy 2 ZS and with 100% volume in PCM and Master it really doesn't seem that loud on my 32 ohm headphones and I'm worried that the 62 ohm ones will seem awfully quiet. (About the 100% volume not seeming loud, I believe the Linux drivers for this card limit the volume considerably, but that's another story.)

 

[jae]

Are you talking portable or home studio? Portable ones are the opposite.... Impedance is the energy effiency and SPL is loudness (measured in db)

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: jae
Are you talking portable or home studio? Portable ones are the opposite.... Impedance is the energy effiency and SPL is loudness (measured in db)

I'm speaking of headphones such as the Grado SR60 having an impedance of 32 ohms, vs e.g. the Sennheiser HD650 having an impedance of 300.

Not sure what you mean by "they are opposite"? What is classified as a "portable" and what as a "home studio" headphone? I'm guessing the HD650s are studio, but the SR60s could be classified as either really it seems.

You're saying that if they had a higher impedance but also a higher SPL that might cancel out the difference in impedance?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I'm not really much of a headphone guy, just got into it really.

Here's some random info on a site talking about Sensitivity with some different models.
http://www.rane.com/hc6hp.html

Sensitivity is more about how loud they'll get with given power, but high impedence ones will be harder to drive, so it's kind of related.

That said, I have a pair of 64ohm Sennheiser 280s and 300ohm Sennheiser 580s.

Both are able to be driven to good volumes via my computer output from my soundcard, and more than enough from my pre-pro.

With my mp3 player, my 280s work just fine with it on their own but max volume from the player is a little less than I'd like for the 580s so I got a headphone amp for them.
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/spmclaughli...e%20System/Everything-Disconnected.JPG

If you really want to talk to some people that know about headphones...
http://www.head-fi.org/ (watch your wallet)

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: jae
Are you talking portable or home studio? Portable ones are the opposite.... Impedance is the energy effiency and SPL is loudness (measured in db)

I'm speaking of headphones such as the Grado SR60 having an impedance of 32 ohms, vs e.g. the Sennheiser HD650 having an impedance of 300.

Not sure what you mean by "they are opposite"? What is classified as a "portable" and what as a "home studio" headphone? I'm guessing the HD650s are studio, but the SR60s could be classified as either really it seems.

You're saying that if they had a higher impedance but also a higher SPL that might cancel out the difference in impedance?

Thanks for any advice.

In short, those 2 headphone are consumer and pro respectivley. The SR60 are really meant for non-audiophile applications, ie...portable, PC et...al. The 650s are really meant for receivers, monitoring. Both will work in either application but not at its potential. In terms of ohms, to make this short, the lower the ohm the less power you need to drive it, which is why most headphones marketed for the ipod generation are low ohm. Headphones marketed towards the pro-sumer are usually higher ohms. There are hybrids to this rule. As Yoyo states, the popular HD-280 are 64 ohms, not too high and not too low. So those type of headphones can be used in both applications, portable/PC use and amped use. Although those particulat headphones do not excel in either situation IMO. This is why I have over 30 sets of headphones. 🙂 I have a headphone for every application and situation. But, 65% of the time I use my 20year old Sony MDR-V6 cans, works great for everything. And I hate sony, go figure. They, IMO, made a great set of headphones when they made the MDR-V6.

 

[xtknight]

Thanks.

I'm considering moving up in the Grado line of headphones (32 ohm RS-2s). I may try and build my amp too should I ever lack sufficient power to drive them.