So after much research I know that I need a pair of headphones with at least an impedance of 60ohms to battle the constant hissing/mechanical sounds in the MacBook Pro. I've never bought a real pair of headphones before. Just in ear ones. I am leaning towards the Audio Technica ATH-M30's. Does anyone have any experience with them. Or can anyone recommend a pair that has at least 60ohms and under $100 on Amazon? They have great prices on headphones compared to Best Buy or the manufacturer. Thanks for your help! I'm going to be going on a trip soon and need to purchase in the next few days.
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Headphones to help battle MBP sound problems??
- Thread starter Silverbird0000
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Haven't heard the Audio Technica's, but I have a pair of Grado SR60's and they are really quite good for the price. Kinda retro design and the swivelling earcups make them slightly more portable than most headphones.
Why did you settle on 60 ohms? I have several pairs of headphones (Sennheiser HD580, Sennheiser HD-25, Shure SE530, Etymotic ER4p <- broke, sadly, and the Grados) and they all fared fine with the MBP. Except for the HD580's, that is. Those were too high impedance to drive straight out of my laptop.
Why did you settle on 60 ohms? I have several pairs of headphones (Sennheiser HD580, Sennheiser HD-25, Shure SE530, Etymotic ER4p <- broke, sadly, and the Grados) and they all fared fine with the MBP. Except for the HD580's, that is. Those were too high impedance to drive straight out of my laptop.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDR-V6-M...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1209206282&sr=8-1
Same as the widely used 7506, minus gold plated unimatch jacks, etc. Sounds the same, looks about the same. Folds into a reasonably compact ball.
Same as the widely used 7506, minus gold plated unimatch jacks, etc. Sounds the same, looks about the same. Folds into a reasonably compact ball.
I settled on 60ohms because that is what everyone is saying is the magic number for the noises in the MBP to go away. I just want them to stop! Every MBP i've tested has the problem, so returning the MBP is not worth it.
Honestly though, I'm not sure even a 60-ohm phone will stop the squirkles, fzzzzts and eeeeeps. The MBP has a relatively low-grade 'Intel HD audio' compliant card like most other notebooks, cheap and otherwise and analog performance is not good to say the least. Many much cheaper Windows machines in fact do better. If you want good results, using the optical out to a portable DAC, a USB headphone amp or a bus-powered pro soundcard would do a better job.
Use a USB headphone amp and bypass that cheap headphone socket altogether. It's there for convenience, not quality. Even without the reported warbles and stuff, the soundcard output is poor compared to the great sound available via USB and a decent headphone amp. There are plenty of small portable ones at reasonable price that far outperform the inbuilt soundcard.
Even this $39 item would probably be a very basic but noticeable improvement (though I haven't heard it personally):
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic
Even this $39 item would probably be a very basic but noticeable improvement (though I haven't heard it personally):
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic
So here is an update on my sound issues: I finally got a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M30's. When I first plugged them into my MBP I immediately noticed a difference. There is no more hissing! With my Apple in ear buds there was a constant hiss when ever the audio was inactive and the sound card had not powered down. With the M30's there is no more hissing at all. I can still slightly hear the R2D2 sounds when raising and lowering the volume, but just barely. The M30's sound amazing! I can finally use my MBP headphone port without getting a headache from the hissing!! Amazon has them on sale for $50 when they are normally $150 from Audio Technica.