Headphone difference in sound

[adamjosiah]

Hi all,

So I'll start by saying I'm a supporter of sennheisser products. I've always been happy with their sound and physical quality and I have been happily using a pair of HDR 160 over ears for a long time with no complaints. However, I recently bought an OCX 686G to use for working out and started using them on my PC since the head brace on my over ears broke. From my phone, I can say the sound quality was fine, I wasn't expecting much from my nexus 5's sound driver anyway.

When using the 686 on my PC on the other hand, I was expecting an improvement in quality and instead I'm noticing a slight distortion / tinniness with certain sounds, particularly "s" sounds in the mid range.

It's not overly noticeable, doesn't really sound obvious enough to be a fault and therefore is hard to troubleshoot. My question is, do some headphones just not work as well with a PC as others. Are there settings on the software side that I can adjust to try and tune the sound output to certain headphones?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Dunlop0078]

Well im betting your foxconn h61 motherboard has the most basic built in sound card you can put on a motherboard I bet even your phone will have better sound quality and your sennheisser headphones may have higher impedance and require a small amp for best performance which i can guarantee that motherboard doesn't have. And if you are plugged into the front panel you can itroduce a lot of sound from your case so its best to plug into the back I/O panel.

 

[adamjosiah]

That doesn't surprise me, I am working on upgrading my motherboard but my socket 1155 i5 still running just fine has held me back.

However, as I said my hdr 160s sounded perfect on my pc so I was asking more about the difference between the two. Were the HDR's good enough to make up for the crappy sound card?

I should also note I just upgraded to windows 10.

 

[Dunlop0078]

That doesn't surprise me, I am working on upgrading my motherboard but my socket 1155 i5 still running just fine has held me back.

However, as I said my hdr 160s sounded perfect on my pc so I was asking more about the difference between the two. Were the HDR's good enough to make up for the crappy sound card?

I should also note I just upgraded to windows 10.

I would say its not the pc vs phone that makes a difference in the headphones but the sound card used as well as the drivers or codec, the realtek audio on your computer may sound a bit different that whatever your phone is using some headphones may work well with realtek and your sound card, some may not.

Also it could have to do with impedance. A headphone with higher impedance will sound worse than headphones with lower impedance if they aren't being supplied the proper amount of power. Your modern phone may be able to supply more power to your 686s than your older pc, believe it or not.

 

[Willie0]

Some headphones are not compatible with other devices. That is one way of knowing before buying something.

 

[americanaudiophile]

Many long time headphone manufacturers have taken to making some models to be competitive with the Beats type headphones rather than the quality of sound that they are known for. If you want to be sure that the problem is the source and not the headphones plug them into a good stereo system. If they are still not right then you can assume that the headphones are commercially oriented.