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High Impedance Headphones Questions


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Over the years we've touched on the difference between High Impedance vs. Low Impedance headphones.  Historically, the headphones designed for detecting have been High Impedance, and all were equipped with 1/4 inch headphone plug.   Everyone developed a preference for their brand because of the way they fit and sound.  These days more detectors are set up for the 1/8 inch headphone plugs and a few detecting headphones have offered that choice.  The technology is clearly moving away from all wired headphones in favor of wireless.  The market is really directed at music and communication devices, not detecting.  I'm just curious how the impedance issue affects the newer technology.  The latency of wireless is a completely separate discussion, but may be necessary to understand the importance of Impedance.  

I have always used in ear monitors rather than over the ear headphones.  It's just more practical in the desert environment of sunny Yuma.  The majority of "ear buds" for lack of a better term are low impedance designed for listening to music on low powered handheld players.  The high impedance ear monitors are available but quite expensive.  The GPZ tends to overpower el cheapo ear buds and produces a really unpleasant sound. 

My question is twofold: what was our understanding of the importance of Impedance in the old days with wired headphones and how/if that has changed with wireless.   

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High impedance cans require more power than most wireless solutions can give. And to be honest high impedance headphones for what amounts to beeps and zips is overkill. A good set of low impedance ones will give you everything you need.

I think a lot of what people like about using a powerful amp with high impedance headphones comes down to volume. Louder is better!

I use high impedance headphones for critical audio engineering work. For a simple sine wave beep I would put them in the same category as dowsing rods.

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To a large degree I think best headphone choice is relative to the individual. I have wired backup headphones for both my AT Max and Anfibio Multi. The audio of the AT Max has no Bass tone at all and sounds very harsh with My 150 ohm Killer B's. The Garrett MS-2 sounds very nice with plenty of nuance for the tones, basically just like the supplied MS-3 wireless headphones.

The Anfibio sounds good with either the lower ohm MS-2 or the high ohm Killer B's. It sounds best with the Factory Blue wireless which I wish had it's own volume control.

The Vista X has noticeably better tone quality with the high ohm Killer B's. It sounds flat with the Garrett headphones.

Like so many things, each makes up their own kit to suit themselves. No one size fits all best.

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On 4/5/2021 at 9:57 AM, Condor said:

My question is twofold: what was our understanding of the importance of Impedance in the old days with wired headphones and how/if that has changed with wireless.   

Biggest change is wireless headphones have built in amps. A big part of impedence issue is making sure the speaker is matched properly to the amplifier, which in the case of wireless units is done by engineers/designers and does not matter what device you attach it to. So, even though I'm not much of a headphone user, I think the most important thing with wireless phones would be selecting a product with both a well designed amplifier and a quality speaker element, and a company that cared enough to match the two. At least for products that have BT built in like a phone or a 6000. An external BT 1/8" transmitter itself for products without it built in might have the potential to introduce balancing issues though?

The cheapo units probably sound bad because the amplifier is insufficient at higher volumes, or is over driving whatever cheap speaker element they use.

I agree with what Tboykin said too. Pure tones are not really going to benefit from higher impedences in the same way as a complex audio signal with a wide range of frequencies like music will.

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Thanks jasong for you above post. That helps explain why some combinations of detector/headphones sound better than others.

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