Receiver ohms?
Hi all,
I’ve been looking at the Beyerdynamic DT700 Pro headphones. They come in 32 ohm, 80 ohm and 250 ohm versions. I want the 250 ohm version, but not sure my amp is a good match for it. I’ve done some reading about ohm ratings of the headphones and that of the amp itself. It’s been a bit of info overload. I’m still not clear on which headphone ohm rating is appropriate for my receiver. Below are my receiver’s specs taken direct from the manual.
Yamaha RX-V665 receiver with:
Headphone Jack Rated Output/Impedance AV5, etc. (1 kHz, 50 mV, 8 ohm)....………… 100 mV/470 ohm
Would a 250 ohm headphone be appropriate for my receiver?
I realize there are headphone amps I could buy, but I wasn’t looking to swim that far into the deep end yet.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Generally speaking, the higher Ohms the easier to drive. It's below 32 Ohms that built-in headphone amps get iffy. The Luxman integrated for instance, doesn't have a separate headphone amp, but has a resistor from the main amp to the headphones. This makes it a great candidate for high impedance headphones. |
Ideally, you want a headphone output with the lowest output impedance possible and definitely lower than the nominal impedance of your headphones. Otherwise the frequency response will be modified by the impedance curve of your headphones (among other issues). Here's a post from Headphonesty with some good information - link.
However, that's not to say that the DT770's won't work well with your receiver's headphone jack. If you're not satisfied with the sound you're getting, you'll probably have to consider adding a dedicated headphone amp to your setup. |
