HD 800 S

Tonal Profile

Sennheiser names the reference: 102 dB at 1 V, not per milliwatt. That matters here more than anywhere else in this batch - at 300 ohms the two scales differ by 5 dB, and reading the wrong one moves the answer to 'will my laptop drive it' in the wrong direction.

Amplification Warning

A 300-ohm dynamic has a resonant impedance peak in the bass, so unlike the planars here it does care about the source's output impedance: a few ohms is fine, tens of ohms will tilt the bass.