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Do soundcard need to be same ohm as Headphones?

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  • Sound Cards
  • Headphones
  • Components
Last response: in Components
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March 2, 2014 6:39:38 AM

Hello, I am planning on buying either ATH M-50 or AKG K550 Headphones and I would be getting a sound card with it, budget for soundcard would be around 100 euros but im confused which one I would be getting. Do the ohm need to be same in both soundcard and headphones? M-50 has 38 ohm and K550 has 32 ohm, does this mean M-50 are better?

Update: I would want a sound card which has inbuilt amplifier.

More about : soundcard ohm headphones

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March 2, 2014 7:04:50 AM

" M-50 has 38 ohm and K550 has 32 ohm, does this mean M-50 are better? "

No it doesn't mean either is better. The ohm measurement comes from the resistance of the voice coil measured with an ohmmeter. Car audio speakers are generally 4 ohms or less. Home speakers are anywhere from 4 to 16 ohms. and headphones can be anywhere from 8 to over 90 ohms. Now the sound card rating is a little more important. The sound card will be rated at milliwatts ( a milliwatt is one thousandth of a watt ) of output at a certain ohm value. A rated output of 250 milliwatts at 32 ohms is about half as powerful as 250 milliwatts at 64 ohms. Look up the OHMS
LAW formula on an education site and use that to compare sounds cards. A sound card with a higher output rating will generally have less audio distortion than another less powerful card at equal output levels. When it comes to headphones, I would chose the ones that have a higher Db rating throughout the audio spectrum which is 20Hz to 20,000 Hz.
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