I’m planning to buy Beyerdynamic T1 Gen3 which has a low impedance of 32 ohms. I have an HD600 works well (basically satisfied) when plugged into the 3.5mm jack on my MacBook Pro, so I guess that it would not be a problem for it to drive T1 Gen3 well.
One of my main worries is that when I “connect headphones with an impedance of less than 150 ohms, the headphone jack provides up to 1.25 volts RMS” (as the illustration on Use high-impedance headphones with your Mac - Apple Support). So I’m suspecting whether MacBook do well when drives a low-impedance headphone just as what it do with a high-impedance headphone. Would it be that apple focused on optimizing its headphone amplifier’s performance on high-impedance devices too much that ignored those low-impedance headphones?
As what I can learn:
mac provides a power of 4.2 dBu mostly for T1 gen3.
I’ve heard macbook 3.5 out is decent, it’ll probably be able to power it well enough but if you’re getting 100% out of the headphones or not no idea.
I’d say if you can try out a good dongle dac with it too and compare them then see if its good enough to your ears or not would be the best.
also ordering from somewhere with good return policies just in case
I have the M1 Macbook Pro when they introduced the better “audiophile” headphone/ mic jack. I don’t usually just connect my headphones to my MacBook. That said, all the headphones that I have connected, including some lower-ohm headphones, have played with more than enough volume.
I find the higher ohm load headphones, as you mentioned, like 6XX, play with lower volume.
I don’t have T1, and my Beyer is the 600 ohm or 250 ohm DT880. So I can’t test what the t1 sounds like.
Edit: I’d also like to echo the comment that I’d purchase a good DAC/AMP dongle. You’ll likely get better dynamics etc, though I think you’ll be happy enough with the volume straight from the headphone jack.
Thanks for your reply. Actually I just don’t want to go out with a whole lot of “equipments” when I want to hear something. All I demand is to get a satisfied voice without those pro devices when out of the road. (Just a laptop and a headphone with me)
