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The headphone impedance...

Posted by EdAInWestOC (A) on August 24, 2018 at 20:57:02

In Reply to: Headphone Impedance posted by idigtubes@gmail.com on August 24, 2018 at 12:32:12:

Makes a difference because the output impedance of your amp is probably 10 ohms or higher.

The impedance of the headphones being too low makes the amp work harder due to too much of the load being taken up by the amps output impedance itself. If the amps output impedance is 10 ohms, one quarter of the amps output is being wasted on the amps output load itself.

In this case the total load being seen by the amps output would be 42 ohms (10 ohms for the amps output impedance and 32 ohms for the headphones).

Your headphone amp's power is wasted because too much is being absorbed by the amps load. If the headphone impedance was higher then a much larger portion of the amp's output would be applied to the headphones.

Also, if the amp had a lower output impedance, 1 ohms or lower, a much larger portion of the amps output would be applied to the headphone. In this second case, the total impedance being seen by the amp would be 33 ohms with 32 ohms being the headphones and 1 ohm for the output impedance of the amp.

There are way too many devices on the market that call themselves headphone amps when they are barely amps in the strict sense. If you chose a better quality amp, then you could more easily drive your headphones.

You need a better headphone amp if you want decent performance.

Ed
Life is analog...digital is just samples thereof

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