Power drain question

[danhughes]

I've read in many different places that using headphones saves batteries.

Can anyone tell me if this is true? Is battery drain substantially less with headphones?

I think most speakers are 8 ohms and most headphones are 32 or more ohms - does this make a difference in battery life? Does the difference in resistance affect the drain on the battery?

The setting of my volume pot seems to be about the same whether I use headphones or the onboard speaker - does this mean battery drain is the same?

And if there is a difference in battery life, how much difference? A little or a lot?

Has anyone done an actual field test and compared battery life using speaker vs. headphone?

Thanks!

[ivconic]

The main difference is in "watts". Speaker is consuming more current than earphones. Easy to check. Put ampermeter in serie with battery and check power drain with speaker than with earphones.
And yes; if you use 8 ohms speaker and add resitance in serie with it you will reduce consumption, but also you will have weaker audio.
Earphones are good isolated and close to ears so no need for much power to hear audio very good and clear. On other side; speaker is far away from ears and there are much losts on way to ears, so more power is needed to hear it good and clear.

Yet...at some md models there is no "Volume" preset (Minelab Musketeer for example) and volume is factory preseted. At mentioned Minelab Musketeer power consumption reduces significantly when earphones are used.
Consumption also depends of how long audio stage is "active" (producing sound) and what is the momentary level of that audio. Weak detections are indicated usually with weak and mum sound from speaker. In that case consumpion is not so high. But if detected signal is strong than consumption rises.

Next factor is type of audio; with or without background treshold tone. Motion or nonmotion type of detector..etc..etc..
In all cases earphones do drains less power from audio stage (and battery).

[WM6]

Yet...at some md models there is no "Volume" preset (Minelab Musketeer for example) and volume is factory preseted. At mentioned Minelab Musketeer power consumption reduces significantly when earphones are used.

I dont like to use earphones, nor wireless, so I found that "Volume Knob" is something like "must have" by MD.

I usually upgrade MD without volume over phone connector (since warranty was lost) to small external speaker with small pot regulator.