[ckng]

Hi,
 
Doing some research here. 
 
Many products claim to support "600 ohm headphones", so I tried to find out what these are. Doing a search on Google and here reveals only the Beyerdynamics headphones. Are there any other headphones that has a 600 ohm impedance? I checked the Sennheiser HD 800 and AKG K812 and they are only 300 ohms. The Audeze LCD 3 is also nowhere near 600 ohms. So why is support for 600 ohm such a big deal then? Marketing?
 
Regards
CK

 

[NA Blur]

It is a power issue.  The higher the resistance ( Ohms ) the easier it is to supply the current because of Ohm's Law, but the harder it is to supply power ( Joule's Law ).
 
600 Ohms is an number that can be seen on many headphones as the peak impedance of a dynamic driver.  Take the HD600 from Sennheiser.
 
http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=7&graphID[]=573&scale=30
 
See how the impedance changes with frequency and the resonance of the driver at 100 Hz indicates this because the impedance peaks.
 
Companies mention this because some headphones out there have high ( 600 Ohm ) peak impedances and they want the customer to know that the amp has those covered.
 
The LCD-3 is a planar headphone and has completely different technology than a dynamic headphone.  For dynamic headphones it mainly comes down to how many coils are used in the magnet.
 
The wiki on headphone impedance is informative:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones

 

[ckng]

  It is a power issue.  The higher the resistance ( Ohms ) the easier it is to supply the current because of Ohm's Law, but the harder it is to supply power ( Joule's Law ).
 
600 Ohms is an number that can be seen on many headphones as the peak impedance of a dynamic driver.  Take the HD600 from Sennheiser.
 
http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=7&graphID[]=573&scale=30
 
See how the impedance changes with frequency and the resonance of the driver at 100 Hz indicates this because the impedance peaks.
 
Companies mention this because some headphones out there have high ( 600 Ohm ) peak impedances and they want the customer to know that the amp has those covered.
 
The LCD-3 is a planar headphone and has completely different technology than a dynamic headphone.  For dynamic headphones it mainly comes down to how many coils are used in the magnet.
 
The wiki on headphone impedance is informative:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones

 
Thanks, but are there any headphones other than the Beyerdynamics that have a nominal impedance of 600 ohms? Google search seems to suggest that they are about the only ones, but I might be wrong.
 
 
Regards
CK

 

[nick n]

Some more include the older series AKG K140, K141, K240 Sextett and K240 Monitors, plus the Philips and Uher and Realistic OEMs from AKG.

 

[Claritas]

Some vintage AKGs and Sennheisers do, such as old versions of K240 and some HD540.

If there are other options, as in the case of Beyerdynamic 770/880/990, it's not worth the trouble as some amps that advertise as being able to drive 600 ohms won't drive their peak impedances so well.

 

[tracerbullet77]

Alright - so I got a pair of 600 ohms from Beyer with an amp that is specifically tuned for 600 ohms. Don't want to sound stupid, so let me start working on it and will post a review....

 

[Mad Max]

Then those 600-ohm Beyers have peak impedances greater than 600 ohms.
Good luck, haha.

 

[serman005]

The ATH-R70x has an impedance of 470 ohms--not 600, but still fairly high.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hi,

Doing some research here.

Many products claim to support "600 ohm headphones", so I tried to find out what these are. Doing a search on Google and here reveals only the Beyerdynamics headphones. Are there any other headphones that has a 600 ohm impedance? I checked the Sennheiser HD 800 and AKG K812 and they are only 300 ohms. The Audeze LCD 3 is also nowhere near 600 ohms. So why is support for 600 ohm such a big deal then? Marketing?

Regards
CK

600ohms used to be more popular for studio use since they're easier to drive when it comes to matching output impedance. Voltage output of course can be problematic when you're not using a studio console or dedicated headphone amp, and even then, not like all of them have enough voltage to really make 600ohm headphones play clean at high volume, even with high efficiency drivers.

Note that products that phrase it as "supports 600ohm headphones" as opposed to giving power output ratings in watts and voltage might be a soundcard overcompensating with gain, which they don't call "gain" but instead use some fancy schmancy term like "Gaming Pro Mode."