high resistance cans

[aych]

Hello, was looking for recommendations for a high resistance cans that will actually take my amp to the limit. haha yes, I think im working the other way around finding cans that will use the amp; but my current SA3000's barely let me use a quarter of my amp. Anything that can actually take close to my full 1000mW?

 

[Kees]

It is a bit of a silly question I'm afraid.
There are basically two ways headphones can be difficult for your amp:
1) low impedance (like 16 ohm) and thus asking a lot of current from your amp, which some amps find very hard to deliver, or:
2) high impedance (300-600 ohm) which requires a lot of voltage from your amp to get enough current going.
And there is of course:
3) inefficient: loosing so much energy in the process of getting the drivers going that it takes a lot of either voltage swing or current to drive them properly.

To answer your question anyway: high impedance cans are for instance the old AKG K240 (600 ohm). Sennheiser HD650 are also regarded high impedance (300 ohm). Beyerdynamic Manufactur can also be had in 600 ohm version.

 

[locu64]

Connect some speakers.

 

[ericj]

seconded. hook up speakers. you'll burn more mw with low-ohms any day.

 

[kg21]

If he did get some of those high impedence phones from AKG, Sennheiser, or Beyerdynamic I don't know if I would consider it good enough for them (even if it can sufficiently power them). I would be worried about those headphones being held back, but that's just IMO of course, and not that I think the C&C box is a bad amp or anything.

 

[ericj]

Well that's the thing - wattage is a rating of power that combines both potential and current.

A high impedance load is going to draw less current, so the question is precisely wrong.

Edit: unless his amp outputs some crazy-high voltage . . .

 

[santiclaws]

Is there some sort of an advantage to high/low impedance cans over the easy to drive kind?

 

[ericj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by santiclaws /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there some sort of an advantage to high/low impedance cans over the easy to drive kind?

What's the easy to drive kind?

how easy or hard to drive it is encompasses several more factors than just the impedance.

 

[santiclaws]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericj /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the easy to drive kind? how easy or hard to drive it is encompasses several more factors than just the impedance.

Straining to think back to physics lectures I didn't listen to...

A number of cans are supposed to not "need" an amp, while others apparently do need one for any kind of decent sound quality, at least according to the consensus. It seems to me that there is a correlation between the high-impedance ones, which are often cited as needing an amp, versus low-impedance cans which are more often said to not need one. I don't think that I've ever seen a high-impedance can which has been called "easy to drive" by anyone. I realize that this is an internet forum and the conventional wisdom here doesn't always accurately reflect the truth, but it is a pattern.

 

[Televator]

if by "easy to drive" you mean "get loud enough out of a portable player"? Yes, you're right... but...

there is more to "driving" a headphone than volume: lots of low-impedance headphones can get really loud out of a DAP/PCDP or any headphone out, but they can be very current hungry and still require dedicated amplification (as to provide enough current) to sound as good as they could (dynamics, cleaning up the extreme frequencies and extending those,...)

 

[aych]

ah. starting to make more sense. haha. sorry for my idiocity. but then are there any general sound differences regarding high or low impedance?