[Jhawkins]

Hi
 
I have a cd player with a built in preamp/volume control, and balanced outputs.  
 
Is it safe/practical to use balanced headphones connected directly to the balanced outputs on my cd player? 
 
The cdp has output voltage up to 5.0 V rms.   And output impedance of 100 ohms.
 
i've got grade 325is
hd 650
akg k702
hifi man he-400
 
any thoughts appreciated, thanks.

 

[iamthem]

100 ohms is extremely high for a headphone. You won't have much electrical dampening with a dampening factor that high. Also 5v is pretty high for a headphone, most can only safely handle 2. The only headphones I could envision being driven like that is the AKG K1000 (~90mw at 90db spl) and hifiman HE6 (which draws a stupendous 20mw @ 1v @ 90db spl). Other than that, it's impractical.

 

[stv014]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jhawkins /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
i've got grade 325is
hd 650
akg k702
hifi man he-400

 
Of these, the HD650 might work reasonably, although the output impedance is still too high, and would not sound bad if there are no problems other than the output impedance. I would not use a line output to drive the AKG or planar magnetics. 600 Ω headphones could work decently.

 

[Don Quichotte]

I've used for quite a while a Technics SL-PS 770A (or something like that) with unbalanced variable outputs, via a generic diy adapter, into a couple of headphones: AKG K500 (and K501 later on) and Sennheiser HD600. Both worked well. It's well worth trying IMO.