Audio Amp Help! Ohms confusion!

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Admiral Meowmix

Commendable
Sep 2, 2016
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I have no idea what this whole Ohm thing means, even after reading like 100 articles about it.

The asus strix soar sound card as a 600 ohm amp, but people say that the amp should be 1/8th of the headphone impedence and I don't thinkthey make headphones with that high of ohms.

So I'm extremely confused. What is the whole Ohm thing and can someone explain it in simple terms or something.
 
Solution
basroil

Power and voltage are actually not the same thing! Headphones with high sensitivity will need less power than ones without for the same pressure level (power = V^2/ R, so higher impedence requires higher voltage for the same power, but power != pressure, at least not in a way that is universal!), regardless of how many ohms they have. In general, that means higher ohms needs more...
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basroil

basroil

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Oct 19, 2013
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Who the hell told you that? That card will handle all headphones up to 600ohm. Unless you get audiophile headphones you won't see 150ohm, let alone 600
 
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Chugalug_

Chugalug_

Titan
Jan 28, 2016
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Ohms is essentially the amount of power that is required to fully drive your headphones.
For example, if you had 140ohm impedance headphones, they would not run well on your iPhone, as it would only be able to support a limited amount of ohms.
All that means is that your sound card has the support necessary to drive even the highest end headphones.
 
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basroil

basroil

Glorious
Oct 19, 2013
8,698
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46,960

Power and voltage are actually not the same thing! Headphones with high sensitivity will need less power than ones without for the same pressure level (power = V^2/ R, so higher impedence requires higher voltage for the same power, but power != pressure, at least not in a way that is universal!), regardless of how many ohms they have. In general, that means higher ohms needs more voltage, and that's exactly what most amps do, they increase voltage (at the same current) to levels where the high impedance sets use as much power as low impedance ones!

Basically it's simple electrical engineering, if your device outputs 16mW max on a 16ohm headphone, it will only be able to put out ~1.6mW on a 150ohm set! If your amp support 600ohm devices, it just means the max voltage is high enough to drive a 600ohm set at that 16mW level. It also means the voltage is high enough to fry your 16ohm sets if you aren't careful though, many have protections in place but not all do.
 
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