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QTIIPP t1_itzsovc wrote

Any audible difference? I’d argue yes. However, it may be very minor, even to the point that you might not notice without knowing exactly what to listen for.

Many people in this community have done a poor job educating newcomers and learners on the difference and significance of sensitivity ratings and Impedance ratings for headphones. People just throw around vague terms like “hard to drive”.

Here’s a quick (imperfect) analogy I just came up with to start: sensitivity relates to horsepower and Impedance relates to torque… depending on the car/race type (headphone), you will benefit or need more of one or the other, but often horsepower is the first one we look at in most cases.

The generalized summary is that sensitivity rating will make a bigger impact on amp needs than impedance. Sensitivity rating is basically saying how loud the headphone is at a given power rating, so it’s the first thing you’ll notice. Low and high impedance do play a role in volume, but it’s much less impactful - it’s role more revolves around how well it’s driven at a given level and can react to sudden large demands from the driver (torque).

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