How to connect headphones to always be on.

[ggoodwin]

I've been getting increasingly frustrated with a connection problem I'm having after upgrading my system and I'm hoping you guys might have some suggestions
 
We have a member of the household who is hard of hearing and so for many years has used Sennheiser wireless headphones connected via the headphone socket on the TV.  This didn't cut off the speakers and the volume and mute were independent so it worked really well with the rest of the household.
 
My old CRT TV died and so I got a Panasonic G20 plasma tv which had the headphones connected in the same way and which also worked fine.  Wanting to get some sort of 5.1 setup I bought some Boston Acoustics Soundware 5.1 speakers and a Denon AVR-2310 receiver.  Here's where the problems start.
 
I connected my Panasonic BS750 BD and sat tuner to the 2310 along with an Xbox 360 via hdmi.  Everything worked ok except when it came to hooking up the headphones again.  If I left them on the tv then they could only receive sound from the internal tuner but the headphone jack on the Denon would mute the speakers so wasn't an option.
 
I tried the Zone 2 connections on the 2310 but that didn't receive any digital sources, as didn't the DVR analogue output.
 
Denon suggested the FL/FR pre out connections so I bought a cheap amp to try it out but the signal is modified by the master volume and is also muted with the speakers.
 
In desperation I explored the possibility of connecting the sources back to the TV and running the optical out to the 2310.  I then discovered that the optical out will only carry stereo signals back to the 2310 which seemed to defeat the purpose of the exercise!
 
Is there a way around this?  I don't mind changing the receiver as long as I know that a replacement allows me to set it up the way I want to.  I've had various discussions with Denon's technical support but I get the impression they don't come across this requirement very often.
 
Any suggestions would be gratefully received as I'm currently thinking of going back to my 2.0 setup
 
Not sure if this was the right section for this, apologies if it's not.
 
Graham

 

[tjohnusa]

After looking at the TV manual it seems the only audio output is an optical out. This would mean you could use a headphone amp with an optical in or another surround sound reciever with an optical input. It seems odd the headphone jack defeats speaker out without using a switch...I will have to look at mine to see if this is now standard, it would make sense to do it electroncly to save the cost of a switch. Good luck with finding a solution.

 

[Bazzman]

Just looked at a picture of the back of the Denon. Have you tried using the VCR audio outs as this should be a fixed level output and should output the sound from whichever input is selected.

 

[MadCow]

If you're willing to go the DIY route, you could build a headphone adapter that connects to the speaker output of your receiver; there are circuit diagrams that you can search on Google, and they aren't complex at all to build.
 
e.g. http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm

 

[ggoodwin]

Many thanks for the replies and suggestions.  I've been doing some further testing/tweaking and have found a workaround.  I'm just not sure that the complexity of the setup is going to be worth it to me though
 
Quote:

After looking at the TV manual it seems the only audio output is an optical out. This would mean you could use a headphone amp with an optical in or another surround sound reciever with an optical input. It seems odd the headphone jack defeats speaker out without using a switch...I will have to look at mine to see if this is now standard, it would make sense to do it electroncly to save the cost of a switch. Good luck with finding a solution.

The headphone jack from the TV doesn't defeat the speaker out but it will only play the internal source(s) or those directly connected to the TV.  The audio from the 2310 receiver is sent to the speakers but not the TV.  The headphone socket on the receiver does isolate the speakers which is a great shame as that would have been the simplest setup by far! 
 
Quote:

Just looked at a picture of the back of the Denon. Have you tried using the VCR audio outs as this should be a fixed level output and should output the sound from whichever input is selected.

Thanks, yes I had tried the VCR and DVR outputs.  I had no output from the VCR out but I think that has something to do with it already being assigned to the iPod dock.  The DVR output did have a fixed level output unaffected by the mute facility.  The problem here was that it didn't carry any audio for sources connected by hdmi, only analogue connections.  It turns out that the 2310 does not convert any hdmi audio to analogue.  So I tried connecting the analogue audio out from my Sat tuner to it's corresponding input on the 2310 and connecting up the headphone amp to the Zone 2 connections which are intended for output to another room.  This worked
 
I was then able to switch between input sources independently for Zone 2 and control the volume etc.  The problem is that each item of equipment attached now also has to have an analogue connection and also the person using headphones has to 'find' the correct audio source match the video.  I'm just not sure I need 5.1 enough to go to this level of complexity!
 
Quote:

If you're willing to go the DIY route, you could build a headphone adapter that connects to the speaker output of your receiver; there are circuit diagrams that you can search on Google, and they aren't complex at all to build.
 
e.g. http://sound.westhost.com/project100.htm

Thanks for that.  I'm happy to DIY but the problem with this is that the levels and muting would all be controlled via the master volume controls when I am trying to make them independent which is where the 'Zone 2' workaround above comes in.
 
Thanks again all for the food for thought.  I just need to decide whether this is all worth implementing
 
Graham