Which is why I tend to take Reddit's opinion with a grain of salt anymore really - Be it Bernie Sanders or Valve vs EA or bashing Apple or whatever else, they're prone to worshipping one thing and bad mouthing others and just being elitist with opinions.
Yeah. No comment beyond that because I don't want to see a big political flame-war thread.
What's this headphone that addresses the problem more? I'll look into that one but I'll guess it's out of my range.
What? Or is this for Brooko?
I was considering the HiFiMan again but I just see a lot of complains on extension and now I'm finding comfort complaints as well. Screw it.
I've never tried a HiFiMan, and my biggest reason for not doing so is that they tend to be very heavy (400g+) and I know from past experience that doesn't work well for me. I have no idea if they sound good or not, or if they're comfortable (weight aside), I just avoid them because of the weight. I've seen recently there seems to be a newer generation of PM headphones that aren't as heavy, like those from Oppo, Fostex, and even newer HiFiMan cans, but I haven't tried any of those.
Thanks for clearing up on impedance, I thought it was just electrical resistance plain and simple.
Impedance is complex resistance in an AC system. Here's the Wikipedia article that explains it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_impedance
For a headphone/"in the real world" what you're seeing at 250 ohms or 300 ohms or 32 ohms or whatever is nominal impedance, which is a centered average (impedance varies w/frequency); some headphones have pretty flat impedance response graphs (planars being the most exaggerated, as they tend to just appear like a resistor, but there are some dynamic cans that have pretty flat impedance too), and others that are a lot more reactive (Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic are the common examples of this). That flat/reactive thing can have an impact on frequency response, because it will interact with an amplifier's output impedance (which *is* generally a fixed value across frequency), and lead to changes in overall FR. It also relates to driveability but it isn't the entire story - impedance (or resistance) is one piece of that puzzle. Sensitivity (that is, power (or voltage, for some mfgrs*) input to output level in dB SPL) is the other piece - sensitivity will tell you your power target (working backwards), and impedance (and this is where nominal impedance *is* quite useful) lets you compare that to the amplifier. To use the HD 600 as an example (because you brought it up previously), they specify 97 dB/V at 300 ohms nominal, and the Fulla specifies 40 mW/ch into 300 ohms (which works out to around 3.5V) - with the HD 600 you'd be able to hit 100 dB SPL (that's dangerously loud (https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=9735 ; http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/exposure_can.html ; http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/loud-music-sucks)) with no problem, and at a more typical 70-80 dB listening level, it should have absolutely no trouble. The same goes for something like the AKG K701, which require around 1.5mW to achieve 90 dB (they're fairly in-sensitive), but the Fulla provides more like 200 mW/ch for lower impedance load like the K701, so it'd still be able to get plenty loud (and before the "K701 require 500mW/ch" or "K701 require 1W/ch" or whatever - their maximum rated input power is 200mW/ch, so anything more than that is risking real damage to the headphone (to say nothing of your poor ears) - that doesn't mean you can't use them with an amp that provides more power; the amp doesn't provide 100% of its power output 100% of the time (that's why we have volume controls and whatnot)).
Higher impedance headphones require, proportionally, more voltage for the same power level as a lower impedance headphone with the same sensitivity (see Ohm's Law), but that doesn't mean higher impedance is always harder to drive. Like Brooko pointed out, the K701 actually end up being harder to drive than the HD 600, despite their lower impedance, because their sensitivity is lower (so their overall power requirements are higher). For desktop equipment this usually isn't a problem, but there are portable devices that can have problems with higher impedance loads because they will have trouble with the voltage requirements. In terms of "is one higher quality" - not explicitly. There are differences in how drivers are designed, and different manufacturers/products target different applications - the HD 600 (and the HD 580 before them) very clearly target professional and hi-fi systems that can deal with their voltage requirements, while a lot of newer, low-z cans (like Beats Pro) target mobile devices that generally don't have as much voltage swing. Beyerdynamic is odd-man-out because they offer multiple impedance SKUs of the same product, and truth be told I have no idea what their reasoning behind that is, but it certainly seems to cause quite a bit of confusion among people. But for example, there isn't a 32 ohm version of the HD 600, or a 400 ohm version of the K701 - there's just the HD 600 and K701.
You can look up measured sensitivity/power requirements from some review sites too, like InnerFidelity and PersonalAudio.ru. In some cases the measured result differs to an extent from the manufacturer's specified values, which may be a difference in measurement methodology (e.g. the reviewer is doing things differently than the manufacturer; this is also common to see such differences between different reviewers/review publications), or the manufacturer's numbers may not be entirely honest (I don't think this should be a big worry with mfgrs like Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, AKG, etc though).
* A lot of manufacturers, like Audio-Technica and Grado, specify sensitivity in terms of power, so you'll see something that says 100 dB/mW. That means for 1 mW of input, 100 dB SPL is expected. Some manufacturers, like Sennheiser, specify sensitivity in terms of voltage, so you'll see something that says 100 dB/V. That means for 1V of input, 100 dB SPL is expected. You can work voltage/power backwards through ohm's law if you feel like converting.
The short version is - impedance is worth considering, but as long as your amplifier/device is rated for the nominal impedance of the headphones you're using (or want to be using), things should be at least compatible. This won't tell you about synergy though, which is a much more subjective discussion. Output impedance can be a factor there, but modeling/measuring that wrt headphone impedance can only tell you how it will behave, not whether or not you will like it.
That said I think this and your comment on the build quality further eliminates the DT880 - but the biggest factor is that apparently the easier to drive version lacks quality it seems.
I'm not saying the Beyers are "instant fall apart" quality but I do think they're somewhat over-rated - I wouldn't say they're any better than what you can get from Sennheiser, Ultrasone, or AKG (ignoring elastic band wear on some AKGs, but those are replaceable). I have no idea about the multiple SKU comparison thing - it's nothing I've ever had a mind to do, but I know there are reviews that have done it (and Brooko linked to an example up above).
