max input power for headphones 30mW vs 100mW?

[Brtt]

Hello,

I am looking to buying headphones with a max input of 30mW. I have a pair of headphones with 100mW max input power. I need to put the headphones into a 1/4th input on my external sound card. The 100mW one works and sound fine. I just hope the 30mW ones will be able to sound and work as good and the 100mW ones. What is the difference between a max input of 100mW and a max input of 30mW. Thank You

 

[audioguru]

Most headphones are strong enough to survive an input of 100mW.
The ones you found with a max input of only 30mW might be very fragile and might fail soon.

 

[Brtt]

The headphones I bought with a max input of 30mW are the skullcandy's Icon 2's. The headphones I have that have a
100mW max input power are the skullcandy 2xl's shakedowns. Thank you for that helpful info.

 

[Sceadwian]

You might want to check the technical specs on your sound card, many of them are only designed to drive line level outputs, and the quality of the audio when driving headphones will be pretty poor if the output is not specifically designed to drive headphones. Skullcandies are badly overpriced, but their drivers are really good, against my better judgement I own a pair, my cell phone is designed to drive headphones and the bass response on them is beyond any other type of headphone. There is a pretty decent couple of notches in the mids that detract from them being high fidelity but I've never been able to see what those notches are to EQ them bout because it would require putting a microphone inside my ear canal with the headphones.

One thing you might want to consider if you want a truly pure audio experience (as good as one can be derived from headphones at least) is the use of something like the Comply Foam tips. Again they're expensive for what they are, which is nothing more than the same material used in industrial hearing protection earplugs with a hole drilled in the middle and a small plastic tube that feeds the audio into the ear.

They provide the same air tight fit of the standard silicon tips that come with skullcandies however, I have very high sensitivity to skin breathing issues so I can't wear silicon tips for more than about half an hour without extreme discomfort, the type of foam that the Comply tips are made out of is both breathable, and because it's a foam provides a near brick wall to sound, I can wear them for hours without discomfort, and working at an manufacturing facility the external sound blocking is great.

The headphone output of my cell phone is DC coupled and with the skullcandies and comply tips I can hear pure bass down to about 10hz.