RE: First Pair of headphones advice

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Posted by PAR (A) on April 18, 2020 at 05:33:24

In Reply to: First Pair of headphones advice posted by troutbum on April 17, 2020 at 19:20:52:

Once you have decided if you want closed or open back headphones, on ear, over ear or in ear, there are two main considerations:

1. Ensure that the headphones re comfortable to wear. If not I guarantee that after your initial interest you will put them aside more or less permanently to gather dust. People have different sized heads and ears so it is impossible to offer any broad recommendation regarding this criterion.

2. Ensure that your amplifier's headphone socket will drive them. Unfortunately many (most ?) headphone manufacturers are not good at providing proper specifications like impedance and sensitivity. I had a little difficulty in tracing the specifications of your headphone socket and , when found, in interpreting them. I think Yamaha specifies output as 470mV into 470 ohms. The other interpretation of their spec is that the socket has an output impedance of 470ohm which would make matching to a headphone difficult. I would just try to avoid cans with unusually high or low impedances.

Buying headphones strikes me as a difficult purchase full of risk to the purchaser. Few stores offer demonstrations yet you will have no idea what a given headphone sounds like, or even if it will work satisfactorily with your equipment, without trying. Basically you need to be able to return if not liked or just be prepared to write off the cost.

Were times different I would recommend attending a show like CanJam to get a feel of what is available but unfortunately that is not possible at this point in time.

Sorry I cannot just say "buy a pair of X".

"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - First Pair of headphones advice - troutbum 19:20:52 04/17/20 (18)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - SgreenP@MSN.com 16:59:00 07/07/20 (2)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - SgreenP@MSN.com 13:53:18 07/19/20 (1)

RE: Moondrop Blessing 2 - claud 13:01:34 09/20/20 (0)

Sony 7506? - bassbinotoko 13:46:17 07/07/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - Pat D 16:32:41 05/02/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - samstone 17:08:00 04/24/20 (0)

headphones - hifitommy 22:34:55 04/21/20 (0)

Decide upon open back or closed back - jedrider 11:23:47 04/19/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - cawson@onetel.com 06:37:07 04/19/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - pbarach 04:52:51 04/19/20 (1)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - Capt. Z 14:10:00 07/19/20 (0)

Open- or closed-back? {NT} - sisterray 09:21:48 04/18/20 (0)

Since you asked... Sennheiser HD600 - RhythmDevil 05:38:19 04/18/20 (3)

HD600 is a safe choice - Audio Snob 17:25:34 04/18/20 (1)

Agreed. - ghost of olddude55 05:53:52 04/19/20 (0)

Or get a MassDrop Senn HD-6XX... - Ivan303 07:46:17 04/18/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - PAR 05:33:24 04/18/20 (0)

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - John Elison 21:19:53 04/17/20 (0)

Follow Ups

RE: First Pair of headphones advice - PAR 05:33:24 04/18/20 (0)

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