Headphones for Moog Theremini

Hi Folks!

I just have a quick question regarding headphones for the Moog Theremini. I'm looking at purchasing some reasonably decent headphones for practicing, and I'm really interested in the Sennheiser HD 569 headphones, which fit into my budget.

I understand that the Theremini has a headphone jack, allowing me to technically use these straight away. My question is - can it actually power these, will they sound good? The impedance on this model is fairly low (23 ohms), but I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile investing in a headphone amp anyway? If so, I'd be happy to hear any recommendations from you.

I know this has been discussed several times for Moog's other models, but I can't seem to find any info relating to the Moog Theremini specifically.

Many thanks for your help!

Hi Emma,

It's not too critical, a 32 ohm impedance one will work ok, and it would probably be overkill to use an additional headphone amplifier. I like Sennheiser's headphones generally. so it's mostly about if they fit comfortably. When I was using the original noisy poweradapter I noticed the warble noise was not as apperent as through its built in speaker, so that's an advantage. Just make sure that the theremini has a good electrical ground connection one way or another. There are some advantages and disadvantages of closed versus open back headphones that could influence the choice of one over the other.

Hi DreadVox,

Thanks for your help! I thought it might be a bit overkill, but I just wanted to check!

Yeah I have the soft warble noise through the built in speaker, but not through the headphones line (thus far!) it will be interesting to see what happens with these. I think it's well grounded for now, the power adapter cable has a long length on the floor, which seems to provide sufficient grounding.

I was wondering about open vs closed. I've heard pros and cons for each choice. My main concern with closed headphones is sweaty ears...gross. I'm not looking for noise cancelling though, and the Sennheiser ones I was looking at got excellent reviews. I'm mostly going for comfort. I'd love to hear your input.

Another concern of mine is that I wear glasses, which is always a pain with headphones. I was originally looking at some Sony headphones, but went off them after reading heaps of reviews where people said they couldn't wear them with their glasses.

With the noisy power adapter playing through headphones the warble noise seems to stay below the limit of hearing, so that's an advantage. i wear glasses too, I use closed back headphones (Sennheiser HD 215) when doing live streaming or recording when I wat no audio spill from headphones to microphone. For the theremini or for pitch preview audio from the etherwave I prefer smaller open backed headphones like Koss PortaPro and Sennheiser PX 100. If you want to play/practice with music on your home audio system, that would work much better with open backed headphones, and if you don't mind that what's playing on the headphones is also slightly more audible to the external world, open backs tend to sound more balanced over their frequency range, and for closed backs that's harder to achieve. The lightweight but very good sounding types I mentioned, I don't know if they are still on the market as have both for a long time already, but they tend to be tho most comfortable to wear also for longer times. For closed back headphones, 'circumaural' tends to be the most comfortable, and gives the best (passive) sound/noise isolation contrasted with types that sit 'on the earshell'.

Darn it - I don't seem to be getting notifications when people respond to my posts!

Thanks so much for your advice. After your prompting, I did a bit of research and went with the Sennheiser HD 599 open back headphones.

I wasn't really looking for noise-cancellation, and I didn't intend to use these headphones out of the home. I did some more research, and decided open back headphones would be perfect for home entertainment as well. 

Honestly these headphones are so freakin' comfy, it's insane. The ear cups are so soft and there's no pressure on my glasses at all, I can wear these literally all day and not even notice. They come with a 3 metre cable as well, which is great for the theremin. The sound is amazing, so airy and spacious. I listen to a lot of classical and jazz and these headphones are perfect for that. Having said that, they can also perform when smashing out The Prodigy as well.

A bit of an investment but well worth it. I've been pretty impressed so far!