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Headphone resistor mod question

post #1 of 4
3/5/10 at 3:06pm
Thread Starter 
I got a question regarding resistor mod on headphones, should it be done in parallel or series?

If I do in series I would make it harder to drive (increase resistance), if in series it will reduce it ressitance and easier to drive, or is it wrong?

I have 32 ohm headphones (Sennheiser HD437 modded) and have two set of resistor, one is 100 ohm and 220 ohm. What should I do to make it sound better?
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post #2 of 4
3/5/10 at 3:24pm
The best sound is found through experimentation. Perhaps you will find those sound best with no resistor at all. 200 ohms is unusually high, I would try 100 ohms by its self, and 100 in parallel with 200 ohms for about 67ohms. spiffy.

The resistors are typically wired in SERIES with the drivers. You only (generally) see resistors wired in parallel for special applications. Yes, wiring them in series makes the system as a whole (resistor + heapdhone) harder to drive, but what you are doing is mucking around with the damping factor to hopefully get the headphones to work in a more desirable way. Different headphones respond differently to this so experimentation is key.

edited:
If you are interested in doing this on other headphones, or really dialing it in get an audio taper 1Kohm pot. It should allow adequate control between about 10 and 200 ohms to select a nice value and replace it with a fixed resistor.
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post #3 of 4
3/5/10 at 5:30pm
I tried to put 50ohm in parallel with 250 ohm beyer DT880 to get the 32 ohm load, just like grado, I think it did change something but I'm not sure what.
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post #4 of 4
3/6/10 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you for the info, I'll do the mods as you suggested. I just tried it 220 ohm parallel just for fun, I detected the bass is slightly worse. Will do the 100ohm series next
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