Klipsch Headphones Posted September 23, 2008 Share Posted September 23, 2008 What is the difference between 32ohms and 50ohms? What difference does it make? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNRabbit Posted September 23, 2008 Share Posted September 23, 2008 Nominal impedance is the average impedance over the audible range. Are we talking headphones? If so, higher impedance makes it harder for the amp to supply necessary current to drive them, especially with cheap op amps you find in most inexpensive devices (i.e., NOT dedicated headphone amps). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Professor Thump Posted September 23, 2008 Share Posted September 23, 2008 What is the difference between 32ohms and 50ohms? What difference does it make? Nice Forum Name! Nominal Impedance is usually the average or midrange inductive value. In the case of Klipsch headphones the reading would be taken at 500 or 1 kHz. The engineer (me in this case) would take a look at a well behaved section of the impedance response and determine that value. In cases like Custom 3 the crossover point is very low so it makes more sense to give a value at 500 Hz for the Z reading. The higher the Z the lower the loadness in general. This is usually a non issue since all headphones tend to get load enough. What is an issue though is damping factor. If you amplifier can not drive a low Z load then the sound will be more "boomy" or underdamped. You can think of this as having bad shocks on your pickup with lots of Klipsch speakers (MCM for instance) in the back. Very poor response to change. Your kick drum won't kick and your bass can become muddy sounding. Thanks for sticking it in your ear! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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