Connector Type, Custom vs Universal, Distortion, Impedance, Max Input, & Sensitivity

[DMichels]

Yes, I can and have read all the reviews...well, way more than I wanted to anyway. Yes, I'm now familiar with the different types and know which type I want. And yes, as an officially old b*stard whose seen nearly all of it, I am able to weed through most of the marketing language. What I don't get is the importance of the few specs listed on the various websites that appear common, and how the heck I'm supposed to make an informed buying decision based on comparing them.

The product as you might of guessed is Earphones.

After having bought, and easily destroyed or been entirely under-whelmed by their performance, easily a dozen crappy pairs from Radio Shack and Best Buy, I've decided to bite the bullet and drop some bank on a good pair of earphones for my iPhone. I would sincerely appreciate it if someone who really knows what they're talking about would spend a few minutes responding with a laymen's description of ohms, and impedance, and single-vs-dual-vs-triple drivers, and distortion, isolation, crossovers, etc - so I can feel like I've learned what it all Really means relative to getting the best earphones possible for the money. I'm willing to spend a couple hundred or more, which I would ordinarily consider an obscene amount, but I'm addicted to my iTunes, I've already glued the cheap a*s pair I bought a few months ago back together onceand they're about to break again. Any good fairly unbiased information will be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[TLS Guy]

Yes, I can and have read all the reviews...well, way more than I wanted to anyway. Yes, I'm now familiar with the different types and know which type I want. And yes, as an officially old b*stard whose seen nearly all of it, I am able to weed through most of the marketing language. What I don't get is the importance of the few specs listed on the various websites that appear common, and how the heck I'm supposed to make an informed buying decision based on comparing them.

The product as you might of guessed is Earphones.

After having bought, and easily destroyed or been entirely under-whelmed by their performance, easily a dozen crappy pairs from Radio Shack and Best Buy, I've decided to bite the bullet and drop some bank on a good pair of earphones for my iPhone. I would sincerely appreciate it if someone who really knows what they're talking about would spend a few minutes responding with a laymen's description of ohms, and impedance, and single-vs-dual-vs-triple drivers, and distortion, isolation, crossovers, etc - so I can feel like I've learned what it all Really means relative to getting the best earphones possible for the money. I'm willing to spend a couple hundred or more, which I would ordinarily consider an obscene amount, but I'm addicted to my iTunes, I've already glued the cheap a*s pair I bought a few months ago back together onceand they're about to break again. Any good fairly unbiased information will be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

You have asked a complex question. Apple seem to keep their iPhone headphone jack specs a state secret. However from what I can gather it is 32 ohms output impedance and has a maximal output voltage of 3.5 volts. I have to rely on the word of others fro this and not Apple.

So it will give maximum power into headphones around 30 ohm impedance. So I would not but phones less then 30 Ohm impedance for your application. Impedance of 30 to 60 ohms will likley work best for your application. If you use 8 ohm phones say, I suspect the output voltage will drop and power will be reduced as well as cause high battery power consumption So the maximum power available is 380 MW into a 30 ohm load most likely.

Now you can calculate the power available to a given impedance of headphone by squaring 3.5 volts, which is 12.25 and dividing it by the impedance of the headphone. This will not likely hold for an impedance less then 30 ohms as the output voltage from the device will almost certainly not be maintained.

Now you can look and see how many MW watts it takes to drive the phones to around 100 db which is loud. 110 to 120 db is very loud. The see where the numbers line up.

The less MW it takes to achieve that sound pressure level, the longer your battery life will be.

I would look at the Sennheiser range and also Grado and may be AKG. Sennheisers are used by a lot of pros and are robust and in general sound superior.

Remember headphones are high fidelity devices, and so to a degree are inherently delicate, so that rare commodity common sense is involved.

I tend to favor a simpler single diaphragm approach without crossovers. As with speakers see try and audition them or buy with a right of return, in case you don't like their sound.