[chia-pet]

There are times I feel like my HD650s produce heat.

And sometimes I wonder if certain factors affect the amount of heat produced, such as crossfeed on my amp, or 192khz upsampling in foobar.

Am I crazy?

Do certain headphones produce more heat than others? I'm not talking about isolating or insulating your body heat, but rather generating its own heat.

 

[firefox360]

Well generally all speaker designs (dynamics, electrostatics, etc.) will generate a small level of heat as the electricity flows within the voice coil. However, I don't think that you can actually feel the amount of heat put out by that, as it's too gradual and small.

The heat you feel is probably due to the insulating factor of the headphones (try using A900s during a heatwave), even if it's an open aire headphone it'll still insulate to some extent. Well ofcourse then there's the other choice, you are utterly and completely insane.

 

[Carl]

Electrical energy and kenetic energy both lose some energy as heat, so speakers do indeed put out a little heat. The more inefficient the whole unit is, the more heat they'll make.

Things like sampling rate and crossfeed should not affect the energy efficiency, except if they work worse at higher frequencies or you turn the volume up when using crossfeed.

 

[peter_josephina]

If headphones get hot, and there's no one there to feel it, does it give off heat?

 

[Carl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by peter_josephina If headphones get hot, and there's no one there to feel it, does it give off heat?

From a physics point of view, yes. From a human perception point of view, no.


How about, 'if a tree fell in the woods, and no one was around to hear it, would it make a woodie headphone?'

 

[toastmaster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carl From a physics point of view, yes. From a human perception point of view, no. How about, 'if a tree fell in the woods, and no one was around to hear it, would it make a woodie headphone?'

Depends if Larry were around.

 

[droopy1592]

Quote:

Originally Posted by peter_josephina If headphones get hot, and there's no one there to feel it, does it give off heat?

lol

 

[Zuerst]

Also maybe a very small amount due to friction...

 

[Uncle Erik]

Yeah, they produce heat, but not that much. It's not noticeable because there's a lot of insulation between you and the headphones- the pads and air.

If they feel like they're getting warm, it's probably because the pads are radiating absorbed body heat.

Also, open headphones dissipate heat because they're open on one side.

 

[Zorander]

The heat is most likely coming from your own head (and ears) than whatever minute amount generated by the phone drivers.