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Name: jackbomb
Ever since I got an X-Fi soundcard, I've been pumping lots of bass through my poor headphones. I'm getting absolutely no distortion, and the bass response of these old 80's headphones is aboslutely incredible. Cleaner and stronger than the "theatre" system upstairs.
But when I really crank the volume, I can feel the headphones vibrate quite a bit! Is it possible to damage headphones like speakers, or are they tougher because of their much smaller driver size? I've had this pair of headphones for nearly 20 years would rather not damage them; today's phones sound far too weak. Thanks.
I would ten to think that you would damage your eardrums before you damage the headphones. But I suspect that they can be damaged by too much current just like speakers.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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You are more likely to damage your ears than the headphones. If you can feel the headphones vibrating, just think what it might be doing to you ear drums.
Stuart
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yep my frind did..he couldn't hear out of his right ear for like a day.
I JUST LOST 287 gigs entertainment!
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You can always get califone headphones at EBAY.
You are correct new headphones will never
replace old timers.The process of hearing starts when our ears turn sound waves into neural impulses. First, sound waves pass through the eardrum to the middle ear. There the sound waves cause bones called ossicles to vibrate, setting in motion a chain of events that eventually stimulates the auditory nerve to send impulses to the brain. The brain interprets the nerve impulses into different sounds. A breakdown at any step of this system can lead to hearing loss.
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Depends on the headphones. Most of the more expensive headphones have coils with pretty high resistance, which means they draw very little current, which in turn means less heat. An average speaker has a resistance of anywhere from 2 to 16 ohms. If you run 5 volts through an 8ohm coil, the current draw will be a little over 1/2 an amp... that's quite a bit of heat. However, I have an old set of expensive sinheizer headphones that I have had for about 25 years and they're still going... played some pretty high volumes over the years with no damage because the coil resistance is about 500ohms. That works out to a current draw of about 10 mA. ( I should point out that the above math is based on DC voltage and heaphones actually operate on AC.... just using it for comparison)
To the other extreme... I've blown out a cheaper set of phones inside of a month.
Bottom line... expensive headphones operate at very low current levels, and therefore can take a pretty serious pounding.
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"I've had this pair of headphones for nearly 20 years would rather not damage them"
Sooner or later everything falls apart. You can ruin any headphones old or new.
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... that's quite a bit of heat...
Well no it's not. The current may be around 1/2 amp (in fact it's a bit larger, as an 8-ohm speaker has a DC resistance of about 6 ohms), but the power is only around 3 watts, little more than a torchbulb. The speaker voicecoil might get a slightly warm but that's all.
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Agreed, power in Watts is what matters, although a torch bulb is usually more like 1W.
If you've ever touched a wirewound resistor dissipating 5W then you'll have found that you soon let go (or yelp), so concentration of heat is also important - which relates to the mass into which the heat is dissipated. A "lot or a little" heat is perhaps rather meaningless unless comparing like with like.
Another factor is that the power handled by speakers is not usually continuous, although I daresay the poster does his best LOL.
DerekW
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