[davidsh]

I haven't yet heard any plausible reason why higher or lower impedance is better.

 

[castleofargh]

 why a manufacturer ends up with a certain impedance is I suspect a little more complex than a meeting with the board members and a vote on 50ohm because the director is turning 50 ^_^.
if you guys start putting into people's mind that higher impedance is better, soon enough you will have that meeting of the board members with a marketing guy explaining how by adding a 500ohm resistor in the cable, audiofool will buy twice as many headphone of the crappy model. and he might even suggest to increase the price on those "new models".

 

[superjawes]

Increasing the length of a run of wire will increase impedance, but you should have more copper to work with.

Keeping the impedance low, however, can result in higher current and a stronger magnetic field.

You could use a thicker gauge wire (lower gauge number) to keep impedance low while still giving you plenty of length.

But using a lot of heavy wire could weigh down the diaphragm and mess up the response you were looking for.

I am not a transducer designer, so all of the above points are just speculation, but I believe that they are at least somewhat valid. A real designer would not only be thinking about these, but dozens of other design variables that will alter final response. In the end, a headphone's impedance is just a reflection of some of the choices the designer made.

The only point I've read that *might* offer an advantage to high impedance headphones is the one about noise floor. Otherwise, a consumer only needs to worry about impedance so that one can properly power the headphones one chooses.

 

[davidsh]

Increasing the length of a run of wire will increase impedance, but you should have more copper to work with.

Keeping the impedance low, however, can result in higher current and a stronger magnetic field.

You could use a thicker gauge wire (lower gauge number) to keep impedance low while still giving you plenty of length.

But using a lot of heavy wire could weigh down the diaphragm and mess up the response you were looking for.

I am not a transducer designer, so all of the above points are just speculation, but I believe that they are at least somewhat valid. A real designer would not only be thinking about these, but dozens of other design variables that will alter final response. In the end, a headphone's impedance is just a reflection of some of the choices the designer made.

The only point I've read that *might* offer an advantage to high impedance headphones is the one about noise floor. Otherwise, a consumer only needs to worry about impedance so that one can properly power the headphones one chooses.

Your last paragraph has nothing to do with the performance of the headphones as such, though.
 
Thicker wires gives lower impedance, but doesn't add more weight to the driver as such, because as the driver becomes heavier because of extra windings it also becomes more efficient and plays louder. In the end it's not about impedance, but actually about effeciency of the driver.
I know you are probably aware of that, but others might misinterpret what you write as lower impedance = heavier drivers = altered sound. It does not.

 

[dprimary]

  Are you suggesting that there are no other benefits of higher impedance headphones beyond, now antiquated usage in the studio? Can we say with that in some way impedance is responsible for some aspect of the quality of sound. Perhaps better way to phrase the question would be to ask if someone would take impedance (particularly higher impedance) into consideration when choosing headphones.

The main reason older headphone designs are 600ohm is that reason balanced line were 600 ohm. It is not a antiquated usage, show a younger engineer that you listen to patch point and they will think it is greatest thing ever. The other advantage is with 600 ohm phone you could parallel a few together and drive them with one amp without damaging the amp. The big market  for high quality headphones 10-20 years ago was recording engineers and studios so they designed them for that use. Now with portable players the consumer demand for quality headphones has skyrocketed.
 
The move changing to lower impedance headphone is the use of portable devices. You don't have that much voltage to start with to run the headphone amp, to make the headphone louder with the lower voltage they redesigned many headphones for lower impedance.  So your "sound quality" is they tend to be louder. 
 
If your headphone amp can drive either type pick the one that sounds best. I have not had any problems driving any 600 ohm headphones loud enough to damage hearing on any player if you are listening for hours at high volumes.

 

[jcx]

the voice coil motor based transducer designer can change electrical impedance as "free variable" with no change to efficiency or frequency response when driven from an ideal source
 
given the same magnetic field strength in the gap, voice coil dimensions you can divide the (fixed) cross section of the voice coil as coarsely or finely as you like by using fewer or more turns and keep the same overall dimensions and weight or conductor in the magnet gap
 
when you do this it looks electrically like you have "the same" transducer electro-acoustic parameters and an ideal transformer which turns ratio can be freely set to transform the impedance
 
second order effects like practical packing factor/insulation thickness may be become important but require more detailed knowledge of the actual product's engineering - as a dynamic transducer 1st order design principle the idealized transformer view is useful
 
 
so detailed subjective accounts of differences in identical model numbered headphones with different impedance are suspect unless there is interaction with the amplifier either through its output impedance or I, V output limits being exceeded
 
why would the manufacturer not give a new part # to a heaphone designed to be different in efficieny and frequency response
 
for different Z of the same model all they have to do is keep the voice coil dimensions and weight the same and use different wire size and turns to compensate - no other part or construction changes needed - just put in the different voice coil
 
when sensitivity is given as efficiency dB SPL re 1 mW they have the same number for all Z versions of the same model
 
if sensitivity is given in SPL re 1 Vrms drive as is becoming more popular then you can see the difference of the impedance affecting the number

 

[davidsh]

It is widely accepted that the 250 ohm dt770 has significantly less bass than the other models. I even think beyer acknowledges this, though don't quote me on that. I don't think this has anything to do with the impedance, though.
 
But generally, I'd agree.

 

[mindbomb]

I can think of a bunch of ways the higher impedance models are better. The output impedance of the amp matters less, the noise floor of the amp matters less, the max current of the amp matters less, the quality of the cable matters less. The gain of the amp ends up mattering more, but my observation is that most people already have more than enough gain with common setups.

 

[arnyk]

I haven't yet heard any plausible reason why higher or lower impedance is better.

 
 
That's because the question is incomplete.
 
The better question answers  "Better for what?"
 
Headphone/earphone listening has evolved into a number of different things, and there should be best choices for each thing.
 
But you got to say what the thing is!

 

[elan-vital]

   
 
That's because the question is incomplete.
 
The better question answers  "Better for what?"
 
Headphone/earphone listening has evolved into a number of different things, and there should be best choices for each thing.
 
But you got to say what the thing is!

Anything, are higher impedance headphones better at anything than lower impedance headphones. As in, can we distinctly say, i'm looking for a (enter particular usage or sound quality or any reason), therefore i'm going to choose higher impedance headphones.