I have a question about ohm independence.

Arishok N7

Honorable
Aug 6, 2012
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I bought a sound card and had it shipped to me. It was supposed to be the Xonar STX. Instead I got a Xonar Xense. The Xense has 4 settings for headphones. Normal gain (+0db <64 ohms.)
High gain (12db for 64~300 ohms) Extra High Gain (18db for 300~600 ohms) And (Sennheiser PC 350 "Xense" Edition.) I have a pair of Audio Technica m50's. They are rated at 38 ohms and 99db.
The Sennheiser headset that usually comes with it are rated 150 ohms and 108db. Is it even safe to use my headphones with this card? Help me understand audio specifications. Would Asus really make a card just for a select pair of headphones? 0
 

byza

Honorable
ohms is sort of like the required power for the headphones, so for the Audio Technica's you would use normal gain, the Sennheiser's would use high gain, and some top end headphones have really high ohms ratings so would need the extra high gain.