600 Ohm Headphones

  • Thread starter Thread starter djchris73
  • Start date Start date
djchris73

djchris73

Backyard DJ
A few questions for the experts:

A) Where can I buy some?
B) Can anybody recommend a decent pair?

I recently puchased an Advantage (BiAmp) PM 602 mixer. But it requires the use 600 ohm (minimum) headphones.

I'm going nuts trying different manufacturers website, to no avail.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Kind of a strange thing. A lot of headphones are around 60 ohms. Could it be a typo?

From what I understand, the lower the impedance, the louder the headphones are at the same same relative settings.
 
I think AKG has made a 600 ohm headphone at some point, but that has to be a typo. There is no way a device is going to demand a 600 ohm headphone at minimum.

Resistance and sensitivity are two different things. Even low ohm headphones can require a good amount of current to sound good (not just loud).
 
Bad experience

I once purchased some AKG K270S that I had to return. Turned out they required a special headphone amplifier piece of gear to use them. I had no idea that such things even existed. I plugged them into my Mackie Mixer board and could barely hear anything. I thought to myself, "what a wasted couple hundred dollars for this crap". I was uneducated about headphones at that time.

I cannot recall how many ohms they were, but the number was fairly high, which began my study and learning on that bit of information.

It's true that the lower the ohms, the louder they are. I'm fairly certain that they do in fact make headphones with 600 ohms. You can read all about them on this site: www.goodcans.com

Regarding where to buy becomes easy, once you know what model you wish to purchase. You simply google it and compare pricing.
 
Washburn100 said:
Kind of a strange thing. A lot of headphones are around 60 ohms. Could it be a typo?
Click to expand...
Not a typo. Says it 5 times in the manual. http://www.biamp.com/products/discontinued_products.aspx Look for Advantage PM 602. And it's silk screened on the mixer. Thanks for your help.

TheGuitarMan said:
I think AKG has made a 600 ohm headphone at some point,
Click to expand...
They did, the K 240DF and the K 240M. Hard to find and no longer produced.
Thanks for your help.

TheGuitarMan said:
but that has to be a typo.
Click to expand...
Not a typo. Please read above in my reponse to Washburn100.

TheGuitarMan said:
There is no way a device is going to demand a 600 ohm headphone at minimum.
Click to expand...
From what I've read it was common about 20 years ago. Also, somewhat still common with larger recording facilities.

Yeah... from what I've read, bad idea to buy 600 ohm headphones, unless you have equipment that needs/requires it.

I'll check out www.goodcans.com. Thanks again.
 
Last edited:
djchris73 said:
From what I've read it was common about 20 years ago. Also, somewhat still common with larger recording facilities.
Click to expand...

The only reason I'd think you'd need headphones with an impedance that high is if you're running a whole band off of one headphone splitter (also stated in the thread you linked). That many headphones in parallel would drop the impedance too low otherwise.

I still can't wrap my head around needing a 600ohm headphone for a single output though.
 
TheGuitarMan said:
The only reason I'd think you'd need headphones with an impedance that high is if you're running a whole band off of one headphone splitter (also stated in the thread you linked). That many headphones in parallel would drop the impedance too low otherwise.

I still can't wrap my head around needing a 600ohm headphone for a single output though.
Click to expand...

Well, they make 600 ohm headphones. And the mixer manual says it pretty clearly to use 600 ohm headphones. I think that's reason enough to need 'em, LOL. Don't you? I mean, you're right, it does mention "...it may be connected to a seperate sound system..." (italics mine). But it's clearly labeled as a headphone jack.

What kills me is how many people say they've picked a pair, for cheap mind you, can't use them with their setup, want to get rid of them and can't!

Here I am, wanting a pair and maybe having to pay a bunch of money for 'em...
 
To me this is a way of saying the manufacturer was too cheap/lazy/whatever to put a high-current drive headphone amp into the mixer, so they used a standard opamp specified for 600 ohms, probably a 5532 or similar. So they require the customer to use very high impedance cans.

In fact looking at the schemo, that's exactly what they did.

Tell you what, if you can mod at all, replace C15 & C18 with 330uF, and R19/R23 with 33. 5532 can do a reasonable job with 250-300 ohm cans with those changes, which are a lot easier to find. I would not use much lower than that or you could run into problems with thermal dissipation. In fact, while you are in there you could heatsink the 5532.
 
I finally got a hold of a pair of 600 ohm headphones (AKG K240 {silver and black, 600 ohm version}). Wow, they really sound nice with the mixer. Very clear and bright, but reproduce bass accurately. They really compliment the transparency of the mixer as well.

Previously, for curiosity sake I tried my AKG K240 STUDIO (gold and black) headphones. I think they're rated 50 ohms. The mixer sound distorted. Sounded like the mixer was bad, too. I thought I was going to ruin my headphones. Then I tried my Sony MDR-V600. Same thing, they sounded awful and like they were about to blow. Way too distorted.

I was relieved when I tested the Advantage PM602 mixer with the 600 ohm AKG K240s. Needless to say, I am as happy as a clam.

@mshilarious, I wish I would have read your post earlier. I'm not afraid to mod, LOL. And I would have saved some money, too.
Oh well.

Happy New Year everyone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top