600 Ohm and no amp. Is it possible?

It'll sound better than people make it out to be. It won't sound great. I've plugged the Beyer DT880 straight into my iPod and got decent sound out of it.

It's more of a volume issue. Headphones start clipping when they run out of power at the source is the main issue. If you push your audio player to 100% volume and it still isn't loud enough, you'll encounter some clipping (which isn't a complete dealbreaker, but it does bring down the fidelity) and still be stuck with low volume. 

Someone just mentioned the Audinst HUD-MX1 in another thread, it is an external DAC+amplifier, and seems to have better specs than what you quoted for $179. There are a few popular higher end PC sound cards that are frequently recommended, but I do not find enough technical information about these.

 It's really up to you but no you will not hear what they're capable of, I've been plugging my DT990-600

 into various Dac/amps, standalone amps and soundcards of late ~ there's no shortcut, yes you will

 get the volume but the driver never oscillates properly - highs disappear, bass takes a hit.

 If you're really set on getting these cans then you may wish to consider something like the

 Essence STX but even then it will be a stretch.

 The real giveaway on whether you're driving the DT990/DT880 properly is whether you're getting

 sibilance and harshness ~ mine are yet to sing a bad note, it's all in the amplification. I am

 not talking about how loud you can them sound.

 Best bet? Go vintage receiver shopping, being in Russia you should be surrounded by a heap

 of old ex Red Iron Curtain tube based equipment that is largely unknown to the West ~ something

 from the late 1960's to 1980's in fair condition will drive your 600 ohm with ease.

 I have a 1979 Japanese ghettoblaster that drives them no problem! Better than any sound card.

 They seem to like devices with a high output impedance, mine are usually run from the Violectric

 V200 (10 ohm impedance) but higher appears to be good too. The Beyerdynamic A1 head amp

 has an output impedance of 100 ohms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by budjum 

 Hi there everyone and greetings from Russia! I'm planning on buying some proper headgear (mainly to write music on pc). I'm choosing between Beyerdynamic DT 990 and 880. I have read the article about those two and as I understood 600 Ohms were significantly better then their low impedance mates. Well the problem is that I don't have an amp.. But I am also planning on purchasing a decent sound card, probably Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. So my main question is .. how bad will this setup work? =) (or maybe it will work just fine?)

 

From the tech specs of that sound card:

 

Headphone Output
Maximum Output Level (High Impedance) +12 dBu, 3.0 Vrms
Maximum Output Power 20 mW @ 100 Ohms, 11 mW @ 33 Ohms
Dynamic Range 102 dB (A)
THD+N @ Max Level, 100 Ohms 0.014%
Frequency Response (96 kHz), -1 dB 9 Hz - 45 kHz

 

Also I would like to receive your opinion on witch one of the two would be preferable for monitoring purposes.

And I could also reconsider my choice of a sound card for a better one for the same price (200-250 $).

That card looks like it has really high output impedance, either that or a low maximum current. 20 mW at 100 ohms is only 1.4 Vrms, half of the maximum rated voltage, and 11 mW at 33 ohms is 0.6 Vrms. That's an output impedance of approximately 120 ohms, give or take.

This might not be a bad thing with 600 ohm Beyers, which are apparently designed for listening on high output impedance amps (as stupid as that is these days IMO). 3 Vrms (about 2.5 once you take account of impedance) is enough for some pretty good volume, and will probably be enough for you.

600Ω Beyers sound pretty damn good out of an iPod to me.  Either I have the most badass iPods in the world or I'm not driving my Beyer properly out of a little dot.   There's no question you'll lose out on a good bit of volume and some dynamics, but a lot of the detail and speed of the driver is still there.

I have 250 Ohm DTxx0 headphones, and sound cards with 1.5-2.0 Vrms clean output voltage work reasonably, unless the source material demands high dynamic range (e.g. classical music), or there are other reasons why more headroom would be needed (like equalization that requires attenuation of the signal to avoid clipping). For typical modern mastered music with heavily compressed dynamic range, it is more than enough. According to InnerFidelity measurements, the 600 Ohm driver needs more voltage by about a 5:3 ratio, so a 3 Vrms device would be similar for that.

You should get the 880.  The 990 is one of the most colored headphones I've personally listened to (really treble happy), but I like it. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by budjum 

I found some more specs on the web.

 

Impedance 100 Ohms unbalanced 200
Ohms balanced
8... 600 Ohms (Load)
Maximum Output Level 9.6 dBu 9.3 dBu 4.26 V rms, 100 mW
@ 100 Ohms

Can anybody comment on these please.

This looks better than what you first posted, although the specified numbers do not seem to be consistent.

Guess what? I actually tried using the DT880 without an amp a while ago and the music actually slowed down a bit and pitch is slightly off. A perfect description is a plane flown by an unexperienced pilot.