"Fleetie" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote
"Old Fart at Play" wrote in message

Arny Krueger wrote:

Anyone know of any good prices on these recently?

Word to the wise - you probably really want 580s.

Care to elaborate? What's the difference?

580s are more efficient, most other differences are AFAIK cosmetic.

So why would one prefer the 580s sonically? With headphones,
sensitivity isn't really an issue.

Sensitivity is most certainly an issue when it comes to interfacing with
portable equipment.

Most portable equipment is limited to about 1 volt rms output, at the
headphone jack, or even less.

If you run the math with a 3.1 volt power supply (two fresh alkaline AA
cells), getting even 1 volt rms is pretty good. However, lots of people use
rechargeables, which drops the supply voltage down to about 2.5 volts.

Interestingly enough, the portables that are rated highly for their output
level generally use higher voltage batteries, such as the 3.6 volt Lithium
Ion cells used by the Nomad Jukebox 3.

I've heard many serious complaints from people trying to use HD600s with the
European iPod, for example.

Same problem exists when people want to use high quality headphones with
consumer sound cards. The AC97 standard for sound cards is based on 1 volt
as the maximum level.

Getting enough volume out of headphones isn't generally a problem.

True in many, but not all cases. AFAIK the market for personal listening
devices is at the moment being driven quite heavily by people with portable
music players, and who listen to music via their PCs.

Is that all?

That's the most important issue in this context.