[ablaze]

someone told me that using a splitter like this:

will hurt the sound of the individual cans. Could someone explain how exactly it hurts the sound? thanks

 

[Kali]

Probably because:

a) You'll be drawing at least twice as much power from the source and it might not be up to the task.

b) Using two different pairs of cans that draw different power would result in either one or the other not getting or getting too much current.

 

[JaZZ]

Theoretically it barely affects the sound quality. But there are cases where it can:

- if the short piece of cable is of sonically minor quality (BTW, there are also some cable-free splitters around, which I would recommend)

- if the amp it's used with can't handle the lower impedance of two parallel headphones well

Each detour of the signal current causes a tiny loss of accuracy, and each deviation from a straight path can cause some micro-reflections. But in reality you won't notice any change of sound worth noticing with a good splitter, unless you have golden ears.

[edit]
Since you drive two different transducer types per channel (or the same types with slightly different parameters, resp.) with one and the same amp, it's imaginable that the back EMF, which normally has an individual effect on the concerned driver and now has the same effect on both drivers, causes a slight sound change in the bass area compared to one headphone driven separately.

 

[swalker]

Is using two headphones with a splitter any different from using the impeder? shouldn't it be the same?

 

[mjg]

don't do it, those things take volume away, and quality. Lack of technical knowledge here, but they usually suck. Get an amp with 2 headphone outs and a switch : /

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally posted by mjg don't do it, those things take volume away, and quality. ... Get an amp with 2 headphone outs and a switch

They don't take volume away, and an amp with two headphone outs makes no difference, just that the splitter is built in there.

 

[mjg]

Yea, but I think the cable quality might be a bit better, also don't they provide independant power to each jack rather then both at once, I was suggest a switch solution that just uses one at a time, not sharing the power of both.... My radioshack one sucked, i thought that it looked similar.

Just my impression thats all, sorry if i'm wrong, Marc.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

It depends on a lot of things -- the quality of the amp, the quality of the splitter, the relative impedance of both phones, etc. If your amp is up to it, and the headphones have similar impedances, and the splitter is of sufficiently high quality, then it won't be a problem.

 

[eric343]

Well, if the amp can't handle the extremely complex and low-impedance load caused by the splitter... some amps don't like it, others (like the PPA I heard, was testing it with a splitter and without, even) don't care at all.