M1 Max: headphone output?

[UBS28]

Anyone has details yet what type of headphones work with the M1 Max 16”. According to the presentation, it should work with high-impedenance headphones.

Atleast the Focal Utopia should work, which is the best mixing and mastering headphone at the moment that I tried so far. Just wondering if headphones like the Sennheiser HD 800S and HD 650 also works without an external DAC + AMP.

 

[UBS28]

Bump.

Someone must have tested now I guess?

 

[bill-p]

Yeah, I just did. I didn't have the Utopia on hand, but I tried:

Audio Technica ATH-M50 around 40 ohm?
Beyerdynamic DT770 80 ohm
Focal Elex 80 ohm
Beyerdynamic T90 300 ohm
Sennheiser HD650 300 ohm
Sennheiser HD800 300 ohm

It does seem indeed that the output gives more voltage to the higher impedance headphones. But anything lower doesn't seem to benefit from the more powerful output at all. Looking at Apple's support page, the cut-off seems to be at around 150 ohm:

Use high-impedance headphones with your Mac - Apple Support (CA)

You can connect high-impedance headphones directly to compatible Mac computers introduced in 2021 or later.

support.apple.com

So at 80 ohm, I don't think the Focal Utopia made the cut. It's pretty much just about the same as my Elex.

Now, on that note, the Elex was definitely able to get pretty loud with the 1.25Vrms output, so I guess it may be okay for you to use the Utopia overall. You'll just have to push the volume up a bit more. Certainly, it won't be enough for very soft or quiet tracks, or tracks with extremely high dynamic range, but it should be enough for most mixing and mastering work.

 

[Cameraman12]

Using the 300 ohm Sennheiser Hd600 on the 16 in Max and it drives them quite well.