• Registered: 2012-05-23
  • Posts: 37

Topic: Need advice - about connecting two headphones, in-line volume controls

Hi!

The babyface has two headphone outputs, but they are electronically joined so although it's two outputs it's really just one. I've got a good quality studio headphone aswell as a less quality monitoring headphone. I've always connected the monitoring headphone through an in-line volume control (a small extension cable with a passive volume control on it). I've recently read that these volume controls reduces quality of the signal to the headphones. This isn't such a big deal with the monitoring headphones, but I do most certainly not want to connect my mixing headphones with this in between.

Right now I have the monitoring headphones with it's in line volume control hooked up to one headphone port and the studio phones to the other (without in-line volume control). What I need to know here which is beyond my knowledge is two things:

- Considering the two headphone outputs are connected electronically, will the in-line volume control connected to ONE of the headphones also affect the quality of the sound going to the OTHER one way or the other? Will even the fact that another pair of headphones is connected affect the signal quality in any way?

- Are these in-line volume controls in any way a bad thing for professional audio interfaces? I know they are available on a wide range of headphones at consumer levels so one would assume they cannot be unsafe in any way, but I'd still like to ask this. The volume control even has a mono switch which, I assume, combines the channels when pressed.

Thanks!

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,600

Re: Need advice - about connecting two headphones, in-line volume controls

tigersoul wrote:

Considering the two headphone outputs are connected electronically, will the in-line volume control connected to ONE of the headphones also affect the quality of the sound going to the OTHER one way or the other? Will even the fact that another pair of headphones is connected affect the signal quality in any way?

Depends on their impedance. Usually you will only notice a reduction in volume as soon as you connect the second one. If that reduction is small then don't worry.

tigersoul wrote:

Are these in-line volume controls in any way a bad thing for professional audio interfaces?

Depends on the impedance again. They might indeed change the sound of the connected (regulated) headphone, but not the other one.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2012-05-23
  • Posts: 37

Re: Need advice - about connecting two headphones, in-line volume controls

Thank you! My current monitoring headphone is 32 ohms and my mixing headphone that I just ordered is 40 so I assume that they will work fine together.

So to clarify:

- Connecting two pairs of headphones will not affect the quality in either as long as their impedance won't drop the volume by a larger amount when connecting the second phone.

- In-line volume controllers may affect sound quality in the headphone connected to it but aren't affecting the other headphone or posing other problems with pro audio gear.