Battery "suck"age on headphones

[matthewcinn]

Does using more powerful headphones suck more power from the battery as opposed to the standard earbuds?

[Bellor]

Yes

[matthewcinn]

are you sure about this?

[mrdantownsend]

yes

[HalloweenOnXmas]

yes. Obviously the power has to come from SOMETHING...

[matthewcinn]

i know that power is drawn from the ipod.. i am just saying i didnt think it would be more power than regular stock earbuds

[Bellor]

it is going to be more power. It's only normal. If you push a baby carriage and then push a truck will you not be spending more energy on the truck? It's the same thing

[iPod Dance]

^ brilliant analogy.

If what you guys say is true... how come an iPod's battery length is the same when you play music WITHOUT headphones attached?

[Bellor]

to iPod Dance : because the phones draw so little energy that it really doesn't matter when you have hundreds of mAH at your disposal. On a Shuffle for example... with only 200 mAh, bigger phones means less playing hours

[Capital R]

Impedance plays a big role in this. Lower impedance = less power used. iBuds use 16ohms, while, say, Sony MDR-V6's use 63 ohms. iPods typically perform well battery wise at a max of 32ohm usage.

[MadBob]

Sony MDR-EX 71 are 16ohms so perform as good as the stock earphones, are there any with better power performance (that are any good of course)

[jwc110869]

Volume effects battery usage, not whats plugged in...............

Stock buds, at half volume, uses the same juice as a pair of Shures at half, or Sonys at half, or Grados at half. Now you might need to run a higher volumes to hear beefier phones at a comfortable level.................

[Madkins007]

If it was what was plugged in that affected battery usage, then plugging into bigger speakers (car, home, etc.) would drain the iPod or other music player dry quickly. We know this is not the case.

The iPod sends out a small signal that is basically designed to turn a magnet in the attached speaker on and off quickly. The volume control makes the signal stronger or weaker (not chaging how often the speaker/earphone vibrates, but changing how much it moves.)

From what I can see, the signal stays about the same no matter what is plugged in- as long as you leave the volume control alone.

What changes is how much of a signal it takes to move the magnets. This is basically what the impedence measures. As a rule of thumb, the bigger a magnet is, or the less it can move at a given volume, the more power it takes to hear.

[Bellor]

Not entirely true Madkins007. For example impedance for iBuds is 32 ohms. Senn HD25-1's are 70 ohms and they are better for iPods since current comsumption is less so the bass for example doesn't get drained so much = more punch. The problem is that too low an impedance or too high an impedance both affect battery performance and what I meant by my analogy about he truck is exactly that volume is the one that changes. That is more than logical. I mean if kept on a constant volume portable players will not consume more power whatever you plug into them. It is all related to comfortable listening levels. Just try to plug into an iPod an HD590 for example. It will be so low in sound energy that you will know they aren't meant for each other. That is because the voltage the pod can pump out isn't enough for these hungry cans. If you plug in a low impedance phone (i don't know any)... something like 16 ohms the voltage will be fine (i.e. very loud even at low volumes) but the bass will roll-off on older iPods because of the capacitor output stage (it is the same with iRivers). In this case the battery will be forced to give out more current since voltage = impedance * current intensity. This means the battery will fail sooner. So there are shortcomings with everything
And as far as pluging the iPod into a car stereo system or a home system... amplifiers, which is waht you plug the iPod into, present 0 ohms (zero ohms) as an impedance for the output stage of the player. Therefore the player is essentially unloaded when it plays. This means the iPod doesn't drive anything with its output. The consequence is that everything works better. And battery performance is better too