[Awooten82]

I have been looking around for a decent pair of headphones to use while listening to my records.  I have a fairly nice setup so I want to make sure I get the impedance right so that I'm not losing out on sound quality. I will be using them exclusively with my McIntosh MAC1700 receiver which I would assume can handle 600 Ohms, but there-in is the problem I am only assuming and I do not want to spend the $$ and whatever burn-in time it will take without consulting more knowledgeable resources.  The receiver is a vintage model with vacuum tubes here is some of the electronic specifics.
-Stereo. Hybrid (Solid state preamp and power amp, tube tuner). 40w/ch into 4 or 8 ohms. Response 20-20kHz (+0.5 -0.5dB). Distortion .25%. Noise and hum: power amp -90dB, aux -75dB, phono -76dB below 10 mV. Damping factor 100. Input impedance: aux 250k, phono 47k, tape head 500k. Input sensitivity: aux 0.3V, phono 2.4mV, tape head 2.4mV. Tone controls: bass and treble. +18 to -18dB. Filter: 60Hz at 12dB/octave and 5kHz at 12dB/octave.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 

 

[PurpleAngel]

I would assume 250-Ohm headphone would be the safest buy.
Did you have a budget for the headphones?

 

[OJNeg]

The headphone jack probably uses resistor drops from the speaker taps. That was standard procedure for receivers back in the day. You should have no problem using a higher-impedance headphone.

 

[Awooten82]

I've been looking at Beyerdynamic and some Sennheiser's mostly.  I'm trying to spend around $180 + whatever it takes to upgrade the cables (haven't looked into that yet been a little overwhelmed with how much there is to learn about the headphones themselves.)  I've been keeping an eye on the for sale forums here and on audiogon but still doing more research before i make a decision.

 

[bigshot]

Any headphone is fine.

 

[Awooten82]

I went with the Beyerdynamic DT990 premiums with 250 ohms of impedance.  They sound great, thanks for all the info.