[nbakid2000]

Just curious to know how many here use headphone splitters so others can listen to what you're listening to at the same time. I know V-Moda has that capability built-in. Is this a thing that people use a lot or almost/never? Are people really interested to hear what you're hearing? Or do you just usually hand off your headphones to your friend? Are they popular at headphone meets?

 

[MindsMirror]

Driving two headphones from one amp using a splitter is bad for sound quality. The increased load on the amp will cause increased distortion, the headphones themselves will produce distortion that will feed back to the splitter and into the other headphone, and each headphones impedance characteristics can alter the frequency response of the other. You also can't control the volume of each headphone individually. So people in the hi-fi community will avoid using splitters to drive two headphones from one amp.
 
Splitters can be used to send a signal from one DAC to two amps without the negative effects that I just mentioned. I use a splitter from my DAC to both my speaker and headphone amps, so I can use either of them without having to unplug anything. You could do the same with two headphone amps and use them both at once.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Originally Posted by nbakid2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 

Headphone Splitters: gimmick or necessity?

Just curious to know how many here use headphone splitters so others can listen to what you're listening to at the same time. I know V-Moda has that capability built-in. Is this a thing that people use a lot or almost/never? Are they popular at headphone meets?

 
It's not a gimmick, but it's kind of a necessity to some people, but absolutely not people who are serious about audio. Using a splitter to have an amplifier drive two different headphones has a bunch of problems, starting with:
 
1. You effectively put a weird impedance load on the amplifier that doesn't behave normally. Even a single headphone can have its impedance shifting at some frequencies, and even if you used two identical headphones, the impedance will be halved. 
2. You can't control the volume independently (unless at least one headphone has an inline limiter), and if one headphone is more efficient than the other, youre going to fight over that setting