headphone impedance help

[Crimson Moon]

would a shorter cable help with impedance?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Not at any reasonable distance with half-decent cables. What problem are you having? Can we suggest another way to solve it?

 

[Crimson Moon]

Not at any reasonable distance with half-decent cables. What problem are you having? Can we suggest another way to solve it?

oh ok I was just wondering if going from 10 feet of headphone cable to 3 feet of cable would help with impedance and or help my low power devices like my smartphone power my headphones more easily. After all the shorter the wire the lower the electrical impedance right?

 

[WyomingKnott]

That's true, but your headphones have somewhere from 4 to 600 ohms of impedance and the cable's additional fraction of an ohm won't make much difference.

On the other hand, you should see the bulky cable I got to send a line-level signal 50 feet. Much lower level signal.

What type of headphones do you have? High-impedance cans just won't work happily with a smart phone. I'd like to know what impedance you are trying to drive. Personally, I've got a portable headphone amp, but I'm a headphone nut.

 

[ssddx]

it will not make much of a difference.

list what headphones you have, although i'm guessing they are higher than 50ohm impedence. either that or your smartphone has a weak amplifier. in both cases you might want a cheap amplifier, although what you need depends on how quiet they sound to you and what headphones you purchased.

 

[Crimson Moon]

That's true, but your headphones have somewhere from 4 to 600 ohms of impedance and the cable's additional fraction of an ohm won't make much difference.

On the other hand, you should see the bulky cable I got to send a line-level signal 50 feet. Much lower level signal.

What type of headphones do you have? High-impedance cans just won't work happily with a smart phone. I'd like to know what impedance you are trying to drive. Personally, I've got a portable headphone amp, but I'm a headphone nut.

I'm using a sennheiser HD 558 at 50 ohms impedance

 

[ssddx]

hmm, generally the 558 should work fine with most devices, even phones. is the volume that low when using portable devices? it may be that the amplifier in your phone is not that strong.

if it really is a problem, perhaps the fiio e6 is worth looking into for you. the 558's do not need much power and the e6 is a cheap portable amp you can use to get some more volume and bass response out of your headphones if powering them is a problem on the go.

there are more expensive amps of course however i do not feel that you really require one and you likely want to spend the least possible.

 

[Crimson Moon]

it will not make much of a difference.

list what headphones you have, although i'm guessing they are higher than 50ohm impedence. either that or your smartphone has a weak amplifier. in both cases you might want a cheap amplifier, although what you need depends on how quiet they sound to you and what headphones you purchased.

On my smartphone it powers the headphones just fine if I crank the volume all the way up which is loud but still perfectly comfortable hearing levels.

 

[Crimson Moon]

thanks for the help so far guys, My phone powers them fine if I crank the volume to max, I was just wondering about the whole cable thing because I wanted to get the best out of my headphones. I have a fio e11k that powers it fine but only the high gain actually gets volume up to acceptable levels however the noise and distortion is amplified although I think that's a problem of certain low end devices and not the amp

 

[WyomingKnott]

That's why I bought my portable amp. I had an MP3 player (also played FLAC, thank heavens) that sounded good on buds but strained to drive real headphones. With the amp in between, it sounded fantastic - much more then I ever expected from a device smaller than a pack of playing cards.

(Then Sandisk came out with the Sansa Clip. It can drive 60-ohm headphones without sounding strained. I am still greatly impressed.)