[zaphod373]

i have the sony xba 4 iems, i am looking at amps but none support  8 ohms.    Is 8 ohms harder to drive than 16 ohms?   i thought 8 was less impedence than 16, but then i read that my 2000 ohm sennheiser headphones are hard to drive, so im confused. 

 

[PurpleAngel]

Typically the lower the Ohms, the easier the headphones (& IEMs) are to drive.
As they are only 8-Ohms and because of impedance issues, really should be plugging them into smart phones or DAP.
Portable headphone amplifiers should be OK.
Plugging 8-Ohm IEMs into motherboard on-board audio or receivers might give the IEMs a bloated bass and other issues.
 
You have 2000-Ohm Sennheiser headphones?

 

[MindsMirror]

What amps were you looking at? They would most likely work just fine with 8 Ohm headphones provided they have low output impedance. You generally want to follow the 1/8th rule, but since 8 Ohms is so low that might be a little restrictive on your choices, so an amp with a few Ohms output impedance or less should be fine.
 
Impedance is not like display resolution for instance, where it's either supported or it's not. Even if it's not listed on the spec sheet, it will still work.

 

[ClieOS]

  Typically the lower the Ohms, the easier the headphones (& IEMs) are to drive.
...

 
The principle only works to a certain extent. Assuming everything else is equal - as impedance getting too low, the IEM will provide lesser and lesser resistance to the source, which in term demand more and more current for the same watt. The requirement of extra current will often put a lot of stress to the source (which results in distortion), more so than driving headphone with high impedance. This is one of the main reason loud speaker, which often runs around 4 ~ 8ohm, require power amp of hundreds+ watts to drive properly - as driving such a low impedance load is almost like short circuiting the amp, and that drains a lot of current. In short, too low an impedance makes a headphone hard to drive because it usually demands a lot of current. Too high an impedance will makes a headphone hard to drive because it might demands more voltage (= volume). Thus headphone are typically designed to be around 16~32ohm, so most source should have no problem driving them properly, without being too demanding on either current or voltage.
 
Also, as @MindsMirror mentioned, you want to follow the 1/8 rule and get a source with output impedance of 1 ohm or less.. It'll help on electronic dampening (lesser an issue for IEM, especially for balanced armature) as well as avoiding impedance interacting (which is more important for multi-driver headphone with crossover circuit, i.e.XBA-4)

 

[zaphod373]

thanks, the only reason i want to try an amp with the xba4 is that to get a good bass response i have to drive them pretty loud, and they sound, to me, fantastic, however,  the ears are delicate and although i love to blast all my phones, i do it for only a few seconds. I believe amping them, will give a greater current and therefore bass response at a lower level

 

[zaphod373]

thanks to all

 

[zaphod373]

  What amps were you looking at? They would most likely work just fine with 8 Ohm headphones provided they have low output impedance. You generally want to follow the 1/8th rule, but since 8 Ohms is so low that might be a little restrictive on your choices, so an amp with a few Ohms output impedance or less should be fine.
 
Impedance is not like display resolution for instance, where it's either supported or it's not. Even if it's not listed on the spec sheet, it will still work.

hi, ordered a fiio Q1, it has very low op impedance, cheers