[gimmeheadroom]

What was Beyerdynamic's/Sennheiser's motivation for having high impedance headphones then ?

I'm on the side of wanting the traditional companies to target audiophiles and ignore gamers and iPhone users. But there is a new age of business now and the old school values are disappearing.

The simple answer to your question is receivers and integrated amps of the 1970s did better with high impedance phones and then early standalone headamps did too. My approach is not to change a good thing. But it's changing anyway.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

What they need to do is create products that are targeted. If Beyerdynamic has any sense they will simply make a low impedance and a high impedance version. That way everyone can have what they think they want. (Yes, I said not what they want but what they think they want. The T1 has a great reputation and a lot of guys with laptops and iPhones want one, not understanding that much of the magic will be destroyed by making the T1 compatible with their kind of product. They will be happy with their fancy T1 and will not care/understand that their low impedance version is inferior.)

It causes focus and direction to be lost which eventually leads to the company selling jewelry, fruit, and electric bikes.

They need to know who built their company by buying their products over the last decades and treat us accordingly. It dilutes their engineering and makes their products crappier when they decide they have to make something for everybody. They survived without that until now and they still can. It's just that different guys are running companies now, know-nothing MBAs and marketing managers, and they have no idea what they're doing.

 

[Ichos]

What was Beyerdynamic's/Sennheiser's motivation for having high impedance headphones then ?

Back in the 70's when they started there were no dedicated amps or players.
They listened to headphones through the headphone out of a stereo amplifier which was of high impedance.
In order to match it better headphones needed to be of high Z.
They invested in such technology and there was no need to change it , till recently.

 

[Sefelt103]

Never realised that, I thought it was just better damping/greater accuracy reproducing the electrical signal. Audio seems to be something you could take an Msc in.

 

[chillysalsa]

I'm curious how this Gen3 will sound. I think generally the high Z motivation was often driven by the slightly easier design requirement to make a small voltage gain amplifier, but I think there is also a number of design challenges to making lower Z drivers that are large enough for over-ear and yet efficient (versus, making low Z earbuds, which I believe is easier).

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Yes, everybody who has compared them seems to feel the 250/600 ohm Beyers sound better than the 80 ohm versions. If not for laptops and phones, we would be right back in good ole 1975 again.

 

[Ichos]

Yes because their main drivers and research was done with high Z in mind and after it was released then it was scaled down to low Z.
Now we are talking for a design made from the start with low Z drivers.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Yes because their main drivers and research was done with high Z in mind and after it was released then it was scaled down to low Z.
Now we are talking for a design made from the start with low Z drivers.

I don't believe the marketing

But, I really don't know.

 

[Ichos]

This discussion is a little pointless.
If a designer has decided to research and develop a low Z can and it sounds good then who cares at the end if it is low or high Z.
Well maybe some folks who have invested in powerhouse's may be a little disappointed....

 

[Cevisi]

There are alot of drivers with low impedance and sound alot better then the t1 we should accept that there was 50 years of research

Its like cars we can get now 500 horsepower cars that only need 15 liters of benzin on 100kilometers. 50 years ago a 200 hp car needed that much of fuel

 

[Hooster]

Of course we all know that high Z sounding better is a myth.
And this is proven by the new generation low Z and/or high efficiency excellent sounding headphones.

Please save this kind of rhetoric for forums populated by ignorant fools. The fact is that high Z headphones sound better and are measurably better. This is a scientific fact, not some "we all know" blah blah blah.



https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones-page-2

This is a fact proven by multiple subjective and objective tests. Not by something that is totally irrelevant like the fact that is is possible to make decent sounding low Z cans. Everybody knows that and all it proves is that low Z cans can sound decent. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Ichos]

@Hooster
This is a comparison between the two variants of the same headphone.
And if you have read a post of mine above I have stated that for Beyer's the high Z sounded better because they were designed firstly as high Z and then scaled down to low Z to address marketing needs.
There is no proof or point that the x high Z headphone sounds better than the y low Z headphone.
No scientific data that high Z drivers are better than low Z.
So save your rude attitude for others.
You seem to be the ignorant fool around here.
I don't bite.

 

[kman1211]

Please save this kind of rhetoric for forums populated by ignorant fools. The fact is that high Z headphones sound better and are measurably better. This is a scientific fact, not some "we all know" blah blah blah.



https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones-page-2

This is a fact proven by multiple subjective and objective tests. Not by something that is totally irrelevant like that fact that is is possible to make decent sounding low Z cans. Everybody knows that and all it proves is that low Z cans can sound decent. Nothing more and nothing less.

That only is considering if you’re comparing the same driver and only really proven on most Beyers. A low impedance headphone with a superior driver will sound better than a high impedance headphone with an inferior driver. A T1 won’t have the fidelity of the Focal Utopia (80 Ohms) or the Sony MDR-R10 (40 Ohms) for instance.

 

[Ichos]

Anyway I am done and out of this conversation.
Most guys here have condemned a headphone before it is even released because it is low Z and you are used to Beyer making high Z and high Z supposedly sounds better and low Z is a marketing trick to address iPhone users and blah blah blah...

 

[Cevisi]

Please save this kind of rhetoric for forums populated by ignorant fools. The fact is that high Z headphones sound better and are measurably better. This is a scientific fact, not some "we all know" blah blah blah.



https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones-page-2

This is a fact proven by multiple subjective and objective tests. Not by something that is totally irrelevant like the fact that is is possible to make decent sounding low Z cans. Everybody knows that and all it proves is that low Z cans can sound decent. Nothing more and nothing less.

The beyer 880 with different ohm dont have the same driver the voice coil is different on each of these

The point is distortion if any one can achieve lower distortion with lower impedance its a better driver

Here on headfi we care about sound quality not about pure measurements. I think you will find more people with your thinking on audiosciensereviews