I bought mp3 player yesterday but after examined its manual it says. That
mp3 player is optimized for its earphones and connecting other earphones
above 32 ohms impednance could cause damage.

im planning to connect it to very cheap but active pc speakers of few RMS
power. could that cause damage?

"bit" -comTOCKAhr writes:

I bought mp3 player yesterday but after examined its manual it says. That
mp3 player is optimized for its earphones and connecting other earphones
above 32 ohms impednance could cause damage.

An important technical nit: the manual probably says that connecting
to earphones with an impedance LESS than 32 ohms could cause damage.
If I'm wrong in this assumption, please provide make/model of this
device.

im planning to connect it to very cheap but active pc speakers of few RMS
power. could that cause damage?

It's extremely unlikely to cause damage. Powered PC speakers have
preamps that are well over 1kOhm (typically 10kOhm) in input
impedance, which represents a far LIGHTER load to the mp3 player than
a 32ohm set of headphones would.

Having the headphone jack of the mp3 player unplugged would be having
infinite ohms of impedance at the headphone jack, and the player won't
be damanged, right? 10kOhms is between 32ohms and infinity, so
hooking up your powered pc speakers to it shouldn't hurt a thing.

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

"Todd H." wrote in message
...
Having the headphone jack of the mp3 player unplugged would be having
infinite ohms of impedance at the headphone jack, and the player won't
be damanged, right? 10kOhms is between 32ohms and infinity, so
hooking up your powered pc speakers to it shouldn't hurt a thing.

thank you very much

Yes, it could cause damage due to an impedence mismatch which could burn out
the electronics.

--
DaveW

----------------
"bit" -comTOCKAhr wrote in message
...
I bought mp3 player yesterday but after examined its manual it says. That
mp3 player is optimized for its earphones and connecting other earphones
above 32 ohms impednance could cause damage.

im planning to connect it to very cheap but active pc speakers of few RMS
power. could that cause damage?

"DaveW" writes:
Yes, it could cause damage due to an impedence mismatch which could
burn out the electronics.

No. Sorry, I have to respectfully dispell this myth.

Impedance mismatches DO NOT and will not burn out solid state
(i.e. non-tube) electronics.

Where you will burn out solid state electronics is by loading the
output with a load that is of lower impedance than the device is
rates. For instance, a device says "minimum 32ohm impedance" and you
hand a 4ohm speaker off of it.

Too low of an impedance (impedance is measured in Ohms) on the output
pulls too much current from the power supply rails through the output
transistors, and the heat generated by the excess current is what
conspires to burn out the output section.

Too high of an impedance output -- no such thing in a transistor
amplifier. You can run a transistor amplifier completely unloaded
(Zout = infinty) and you won't ruin anything.

To full demonstrate that this impedance mismatch stuff is not what you
think, I'll add that , the output impedance of most transistor
amplifiers is much less than an ohm. If this theory were correct, the
store shelves would be filled with speakers and headphones with a
fraction of an ohm load, and the speaker terminals of your power
amplifiers wouldn't be labeled "4ohms minimum."

Tube output amplifiers on the other hand--that's where you need to be
careful about matching the load impedance to the nominal output
impedance of the amplifier because tube amps are transformer coupled
outputs, and impedance mismatches can lead to dramatic voltage swings
that can lead to arcing and all sorts of bad times.

Impedance matching is important in maximizing power transfer in
transmission lines, and things of that nature, but impedance
mismtaches essentially aren't an issue audio consumers need to worry
about. Input impedances of preamps are generally very high (10kohms
or more) and output impedances are generally quite low in comparison
on the signal level end, and on the output end, power amplifier output
impedance is generally very low (0.1ohms) and speaker impedances are
relatively quite high (2ohms for extreme car audio, on up to 8 or
16ohms for home speakers, and on up to 32 ohms for headphones).

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

bit wrote:

I bought mp3 player yesterday but after examined its manual it says. That
mp3 player is optimized for its earphones and connecting other earphones
above 32 ohms impednance could cause damage.

That's nonsense. You can't damage a solid state output stage by using a *higher*
impedance. Connecting a *lower* impedance might hurt it but no way a higher one,
which is what the inputs of active speakers are.

im planning to connect it to very cheap but active pc speakers of few RMS
power. could that cause damage?

No.

Graham

DaveW wrote:

Yes, it could cause damage due to an impedence mismatch which could burn out
the electronics.

Utter drivel.

No modern audio electronics needs to be 'impedance matched' anyway. It's a bogus
concept from the 40s - 60s.

Graham