How do I find out how much Ohm my motherboard can handle? I can't find the info in the specs.

[Fynriel]

My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Game Plus.
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5432&kw=game%20plus#ov

I want to get a Beyerdynamic DT880 but they come in 32, 250 and 600 Ohm variations.

 

[te100]

Specially designed for gamers, GIGABYTE motherboards utilize a high-capacity amplifier which is able to drive 600Ω loads, giving gamers a fuller range of dynamic sound with crisper details and less distortion when using high quality professional headphones.

so 600 ohms

 

[skit75]

[strike]It is probably[/strike] The Realtek ALC1150 is probably somewhere between 32-75 Ohms. It isn't a bad integrated solution to be honest. With those headphones though, I would probably get something better, since you are dropping good money on the headphones.

Looks like there is an amplifier in between the rear outputs and the ALC1150 to boost impedance that is not apart of the ALC1150. I have no idea which amp it is though so I guess you will have to take the Gigabyte marketing team's word for it.

 

[photonboy]

[strike]It is probably[/strike] The Realtek ALC1150 is probably somewhere between 32-75 Ohms. It isn't a bad integrated solution to be honest. With those headphones though, I would probably get something better, since you are dropping good money on the headphones.

Looks like there is an amplifier in between the rear outputs and the ALC1150 to boost impedance that is not apart of the ALC1150. I have no idea which amp it is though so I guess you will have to take the Gigabyte marketing team's word for it.

Read the first response as it's apparently up to 600ohm.

And FYI, the ALC1150 has nothing to do with the impedance rating. It just processes digital data. It's not until the DAC output (Digital to Analog Converter) stage where it then goes into the OP-AMP after which impedance matching is a concern.

 

[photonboy]

250 ohm

You might find this overall more compatible with other devices.

Volume vs OHM:
The OHM rating affects the volume greatly. I have good Sony 24 ohm headphones and on my sound card, the output is rated at between 16 ohm and 600 ohm.

**The VOLUME has to be at roughly 5% with this headset/card combination. Any higher and it's too loud. The greater the OHM rating of the headphones the higher the impedance and the less loud they are. Conversely, the lower the OHM value of the headphones the louder they are.

So 600 ohm headphones on a 600 ohm sound solution should work just fine, however on other devices such as another computer with a lower ohm value the headphones may be not loud enough.

Thus 250 ohm would be more compatible and frankly I'd be surprised if you could detect a quality difference between 250 ohm and 600 ohm headphones on the same 600 ohm sound solution.

 

[Fynriel]

Oh, thanks! I was looking at the specs page, but it's actually in the overview!

 

[Fynriel]

250 ohm
**The VOLUME has to be at roughly 5% with this headset/card combination. Any higher and it's too loud. The greater the OHM rating of the headphones the higher the impedance and the less loud they are. Conversely, the lower the OHM value of the headphones the louder they are.

Wait, so you're saying a 250 Ohm headset on a 600 Ohm output would have to be 5% volume? I don't really understand why.

 

[photonboy]

Oh, thanks! I was looking at the specs page, but it's actually in the overview!
So I can use 600 Ohm headphones. Would there be any drawbacks to using 250 or 32 ones if they're cheaper?

*Feel free to politely correct me if anybody feels I'm in error. I don't think I am though.

I was updating my post so not sure if you read it.

250 ohm will be more compatible (volume), and as I said I doubt you can detect the difference.

32 ohm is not recommended. As I said 24 ohm headphones (for similar 600 ohm max) were barely usable as the volume had to be no greater than roughly 5%.

(Also, I had to be careful about not having my headphones connected if I had the volume at 50% for my desktop speakers since I might damage them. At 250 ohm that's likely not an issue)

Other:
Make sure you're connecting directly to the rear output of the motherboard. If you use the FRONT of the case you'll introduce noise (connector acts as an antennae), and if you connect to a SPEAKER this is probably going to result in a quality loss as well since there's more analog processing being done (the speaker amplifier).

I know on my speakers it's not a direct connection because I can adjust the volume to the headphones from the speaker.

 

[Fynriel]

Other:
Make sure you're connecting directly to the rear output of the motherboard. If you use the FRONT of the case you'll introduce noise (connector acts as an antennae), and if you connect to a SPEAKER this is probably going to result in a quality loss as well since there's more analog processing being done (the speaker amplifier).

I know on my speakers it's not a direct connection because I can adjust the volume to the headphones from the speaker.

This would have been my next question, thanks! I have a Blackwidow keyboard that has a headphone jack on it that's really convenient to use. 🙁

 

[Fynriel]

Ok, I really don't understand this thing about the volume being potentially too LOUD. I understand that it's too quiet if the impedence is too high and the motherboard can't overcome that, but the reverse is also true? Meaning for my 600 Ohm motherboard I need to use peripherals that also have a high impedence to match that, otherwise they'll be too loud? What about speakers?

 

[skit75]

[strike]It is probably[/strike] The Realtek ALC1150 is probably somewhere between 32-75 Ohms. It isn't a bad integrated solution to be honest. With those headphones though, I would probably get something better, since you are dropping good money on the headphones.

Looks like there is an amplifier in between the rear outputs and the ALC1150 to boost impedance that is not apart of the ALC1150. I have no idea which amp it is though so I guess you will have to take the Gigabyte marketing team's word for it.

Read the first response as it's apparently up to 600ohm.

And FYI, the ALC1150 has nothing to do with the impedance rating. It just processes digital data. It's not until the DAC output (Digital to Analog Converter) stage where it then goes into the OP-AMP after which impedance matching is a concern.

The 600 Ohm impedance is only on the rear outputs due to the additional op-amp added in that has nothing to do with ALC1150. I understand this as outlined in my second paragraph. I was hoping to illustrate that to the OP. Maybe your reply works better.

 

[photonboy]

[strike]It is probably[/strike] The Realtek ALC1150 is probably somewhere between 32-75 Ohms. It isn't a bad integrated solution to be honest. With those headphones though, I would probably get something better, since you are dropping good money on the headphones.

Looks like there is an amplifier in between the rear outputs and the ALC1150 to boost impedance that is not apart of the ALC1150. I have no idea which amp it is though so I guess you will have to take the Gigabyte marketing team's word for it.

Read the first response as it's apparently up to 600ohm.

And FYI, the ALC1150 has nothing to do with the impedance rating. It just processes digital data. It's not until the DAC output (Digital to Analog Converter) stage where it then goes into the OP-AMP after which impedance matching is a concern.

The 600 Ohm impedance is only on the rear outputs due to the additional op-amp added in that has nothing to do with ALC1150. I understand this as outlined in my second paragraph. I was hoping to illustrate that to the OP. Maybe your reply works better.

Actually, I was partially incorrect as the ALC1150 does have DAC integration thus is outputting an analog signal (and separate digital output that did not go through the DAC). Having said that only the OP-AMP impedance is relevant for this discussion.

So IMO is still that 250ohm is the optimal one to use. As said 32 ohm may be too loud and 600 ohm probably is fine here but not for other devices.

 

[photonboy]

Ok, I really don't understand this thing about the volume being potentially too LOUD. I understand that it's too quiet if the impedence is too high and the motherboard can't overcome that, but the reverse is also true? Meaning for my 600 Ohm motherboard I need to use peripherals that also have a high impedence to match that, otherwise they'll be too loud? What about speakers?

First, speakers have their own amplifier so you can not only control the volume of the motherboard output through Windows (controlling the sound card) but can also change the volume at the speakers themselves so that is unlikely to be an issue.

As for headphones being too LOUD I am going solely by personal experience. You are given a RANGE that supposedly any headphones will work in (i.e. 16 ohm to 600 ohm). But what does that mean...

In my experience it means that using a 16 ohm headphone requires minimal volume (i.e. say 5%) to be sufficiently loud and the higher the ohm rating the higher the volume needs to be. Thus maybe 600 ohm is closer to 100% volume or maybe it is 70% output but I honestly do not have the experience to be more specific.

So that is why I suggest something more in the MIDDLE such as the 250 ohm choice.

 

[photonboy]

Also, as said above the FRONT output is not connected to the additional OP-AMP. So do not use that with high quality headphones.

*Which gives you a PROBLEM really...

How are you going to connect BOTH your speakers AND your high quality headphones... there is only one set of outputs. You can not do both at the same time.

If you use the FRONT output that is not connected to the OP-AMP thus will not drive high impedance headphones. If you attach to the speaker directly you use its own amplifier thus probably lose some quality defeating the point of better headphones likely, and if you attach to the REAR you can not attach your speakers and I doubt you want to manually keep switching.

Using headphones and speakers is a bit of a mess really. Ideally you would connect to the front of PC or speakers (which automatically mutes) but I have yet to see this done AND keep the quality high.

If anyone has great suggestions on this, aside from using an external DAC this might be a spot to comment.

 

[skit75]

I'm in a similar situation(speakers + headphone setup). There is not an easy or elegant way to get around that, which I have found. I use the onboard Realtek ALC1200 chip for my 5.1 speaker setup and connect my Sennheiser 558 headphones thru an Asus Xonar Essence stereo headphone amplifier sound card. I do all my gaming with my speakers and only use the headphones when listening to music.

 

[Rez_]

I would like to know if my gigabyte z77p-d3 could run the Sennheiser PC 360. I am pretty sure that the PC 360 uses 50 Ohm, but please correct me if i'm wrong. Btw. this motherboard is a bit old. (About 3 years old).

 

[skit75]

It is not just a loudness that is affected by an impedance mismatch. The signal can also be partially reflected or distorted and won't sound as good as a matched setup.