Will Your Amp Drive Your Headphones? A Step-by-Step Guide to Headphone Sensitivity, Voltage, Power and Headroom

A two-page practical guide to working out whether an amplifier can drive a given pair of headphones. It explains the difference between dB/mW and dB/V sensitivity and how to convert between them, how to choose a listening level and allow for crest-factor headroom, and how to calculate the voltage, power and current a headphone needs. Three worked examples cover a sensitive 16 Ω IEM, a 300 Ω dynamic headphone and a low-sensitivity 32 Ω planar. The same calculation can be run interactively with the free Headphone Power Calculator from The Audio Stuff. More free browser-based audio tools: theaudiostuff.com/tools/.