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Headphone Resistances; What can be the difference be?
Topic Started: 28 Oct 2006, 06:31 PM (1,216 Views)
sukasuka
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I was checking out some headphones at Jaben today and I realised that some are 32 ohms, others are 100+ ohms and even have some 250 ohms. It makes me wonder why. Yes, it's easier to drive the 32 ohms one, where turning the knob to 25% produces the same volume as 75% on the 100+ ohms headphones.

Besides being easier to drive for those headphones that have a lower resistance, what's the main purpose in having differences in resistance? Any pros and cons for the higher 250 ohms one and the lower 32 ohms one?
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zonalblitz
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Higher ohm headphones are least sensitive to noises for 'true' passive signals, usually found in the upper range or monitoring headphones.

Commonly, headphones with lower impedance were designed to pair with portable players.

Therefore, consider the impedance when choosing the range of dynamic headphones/earphones.
If impressing/being impressed is how it gets you around, forget it. It is not gonna happen.
The world of audiophile and fine living is not an Olympics.

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sukasuka
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so if i see a DT 990 having 32 ohm and 250 omh, it'll be better to go for the higher one and pair it with an amp?
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pegasus21
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Seems that way. You know how in certain amplifiers you plug in a lower impedance headphones and you get those hissing noise? A higher impedance headphone wouldn't give you that hiss.
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aaron-xp
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There's been some threads on "hiss-busters" in headfi, which seems to work with resistors. Would that have the same effect as a headphone which comes with higher impedance already?
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TopGun
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Generally, people will say that a higher impedance version would help to lower the floor noise (background noise) and are "less sensitive" -> "power hungry" -> "amp needed"

A sensitive headphone (low impedance) would detect hisses and noises easily.

Only if you have a suitable amp to drive it relatively well.
For people who like to pimp their cans outside and outdoors in the urban jungle, you'd better stick with a lower impedance version.

Note : Adding resistors to the cable is not increasing it's impedance . It's a totally different perspective. Hmm... I think the DIY gurus can come out and give a hand?

For the moment, take a look here :

http://www.bcae1.com/resvsimp.htm
http://www.physlink.com/education/AskExperts/ae517.cfm
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00367.htm

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sukasuka
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well, uncle wilson has this fantastic bundle of *censored-willingly-unlike-other-forums* shhh.. cant tell u just yet. he hasn't announced.
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cruise
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Sorry OT abit.. i realised tat my UM2 has this hissing sound during the beginning of the song.. esp before the song is abt to beginning.. is it a defunct or is it becos of UM2's sensitivity?
Portable Rig:
8G Ipod Nano + Hornet M + custom IC + UM2

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away"
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TopGun
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cruise
Oct 28 2006, 10:10 PM
Sorry
OT abit.. i realised tat my UM2 has this hissing sound during the
beginning of the song.. esp before the song is abt to beginning.. is it
a defunct or is it becos of UM2's sensitivity?

Yes, it's UM2's sensitivity.
But portable amp users have reported that the Portaphile, the Xenos amp and the Larocco portable amp has absolutely no hiss when paired with those.

This is most probably due to it's low impedance and high sensitivity of the IEMs itself, very prone to pick up any noise.. any voltage swings, slight or big.

The hiss you are picking up during either quiet passages between music or when nothing is playing is due to the IEM's sensitivity.

However, if you only notice the hissing when music is playing quiet or soft passages/tracks, but no hiss when u plug it with amp/ampless BUT NO MUSIC, then I think it's the recording that has hiss. Most likely it was an analogue transfereed to digital medium.
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cruise
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The Great One
does it mean e only solution is to plug into those mentioned amps to rid of the hissing? cos the mentioned amps are pretty exobitant, except for portaphile which im hunting for its 2nd hand cos cesar has stopped producing them..
Portable Rig:
8G Ipod Nano + Hornet M + custom IC + UM2

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away"
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TopGun
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cruise
Oct 28 2006, 10:21 PM
does it mean e only solution is to plug into those mentioned amps to rid of the hissing? cos the mentioned amps are pretty exobitant, except for portaphile which im hunting for its 2nd hand cos cesar has stopped producing them..

There's another cheap way.. which is to increase the load on your portable transducers (moving armatures that vibrate surrounding air to generate waves = sound = IEMs) <_< by either using :

1. resistor
2. sound attenuator (Shure, UE carries their own)

Cheaper but this will drain more life from you battery reserves (hence faster discharge rate) but it will reduce the hiss.
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cruise
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The Great One
lols, i tot i would wait for e Tomahawk!! lets see wat this baby can do, since its design for IEMs!~
Portable Rig:
8G Ipod Nano + Hornet M + custom IC + UM2

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away"
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sukasuka
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cruise, remember what we must do... buy it all 3 of us together? lol
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cruise
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The Great One
oh!!~ hey there Ballack, nice meeting u at Jaben!@~ Woo!~ i'll think abt it.. dillemma over e DT770 32ohms or MS2i..
Portable Rig:
8G Ipod Nano + Hornet M + custom IC + UM2

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away"
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huangyong
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hello guys, impedance and sesitivity is slightly different.

for impedance:
1. high impedance phones need large voltage swing, in layman term, it's called GAIN. you need high gain amplifier / source to drive it well. Normally, a battery driven portable player only supplied with low voltage, thus cannot produce such high gain to drive high impedance phones.

2. low impedance phones need low gain to produce loud sound, but you need high CURRENT to drive to optimum level. For this one you would need low gain high current amp like PPA, Gilmore to drive.

for sensitivity,
for example, i have experience this with my own phones.
AKG501 has Sensitivity 94 dB with 120ohm VS Senn HD600 has Sensitivity 97dB with 300ohm

with the same setup, i need to turn the volume up more to listen to AKG501 than HD600. Why?? you might ask, i thought the HD600 has higher impedance than AKG501??

yes, HD600's impedance is higher than AKG501, but the AKG's sensitivity is lower.

in conclusion, THE EASIER TO DRIVE, THE HIGHER THE SENSITIVITY IS.

just my 2 cent, if my info is somehting wrong, pls tell me. we are all learning together.

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sukasuka
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so that sensitivity thingy is the ie. 96 dB / V stuff on specs page?
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pegasus21
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Yes it's that dB/V or dB/mW thing. You'll have to convert both to the same units to compare if one is in V and the other is in mW.
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cruise
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The Great One
regret not taking some electrical during my poly days.. im so alienated to all these..

So tat means u need a high gain amp to drive a high impedance phones

and

A higher volume when listening to phones with lower sensitivity??
Portable Rig:
8G Ipod Nano + Hornet M + custom IC + UM2

"Life is not the amount of breaths you take. It's the moments that take your breath away"
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Fongalv
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huangyong
Oct 29 2006, 08:39 AM
in conclusion, THE EASIER TO DRIVE, THE HIGHER THE SENSITIVITY IS.


Thanks for the detailed explaination HY...

On a similiar note, Im using a pair of 250Ohms DT880s thats rated 96db...so I guess it should be easy to drive? In fact for my XiangSheng 708b, I could only turn the volume knob from like 7oclk to 7.30 and its already VERY loud liao...can anything be done to lower the gain to make the volume knob more usable(im thinking DIY)?

btw I think it should be "The higher the sensitivity, the easier to drive"...Cause, and Effect... ;)

TIA!

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