[crz]

(hope this is the right place) I got a new monitor with no sound and I want to know how to connect headphones directly to my 360. Is that possible? What do I need to buy?

Thanks in advance

first post

 

[jgonino]

Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about your wallet!

The xbox 360 has a set of standard Red and white male RCA plugs, as well as a digital output.

The cheapest thing you could get would be an inline volume control with a mini jack at the end, and an adapter at the end to convert from mini to RCA females.

But this being Head-Fi, we have a more expensive solution that will sound a lot better.
You could get a small amplifier with RCA inputs, and a headphone jack output. There are lots of options here, from $50 cMoy amps, to $5,000 tube amps. You could also get something that uses digital input like the ibasso D1, and connect it to the optical port on the back of the 360.

 

[Random Murderer]

you should get an rca to mini jack converter and a female-to-female mini jack coupler.
i don't know if you have radioshack where you live, but here's links to what you need.
rca to mini jack converter
female-to-female mini jack coupler

 

[JeffMac]

First time poster, long time lurker (sorry about my wallet already, and getting sorrier all the time!) and I've recently dealt with this very thing.

I know the RCA-to-an-adapter route is the cheapest, but for me it sounded really bad. Like, not workable.

I tried running it through the line-in on a Total Bithead, and it just sounded really noisy to me. (This was with ER-4Ps and with Sennheiser HD-580s.) Crackle, crackle, hiss, hiss. Also the volume dynamics were strange. Either blaringly loud and piercing or barely audible. I can only imagine that it would sound worse with a little volume controller.

Best solution I've found so far? The JVC SU-DH1 surround adapter (which I read about right here at head-fi). I got it from Audiocubes.com for about a hundred bucks. Couple of gotchas, but surmountable ones.

1.) You need to buy the Japanese version if you don't want to deal with batteries. (It's the one that Audiocubes sells.) The American version doesn't have an AC Adapter jack.
2.) You have to, you know, BUY the AC adapter. 10-15 bucks at Radio Shack, and you're all set, though.
3.) The optical in is a miniplug, so to connect it to the Xbox 360, you'll need an optical cable and a miniplug adapter. But they're, like, a dollar.

Honestly, this setup sounds fantastic to me for gaming. I find myself using the ER-4Ps with it (not wild about the Senns) and I am blown away at how full the sound is. And all for a little over a hundred bucks (plus the cost of whatever headphones you use.)

Not as cheap as the adapter option, of course. But not crazy-expensive either. Highly recommended, for what it's worth from someone with one post. Including, you know, this one.

 

[jgonino]

That is one hell of a first post!

The surround adapter sounds cool. I ran the rca's directly to my Corda Headfive, and it sounded really good. There are a lot of different was to do it.

Heck, just find an old receiver, and plug in the RCA's from the xbox, and use the headphone jack on the receiver for gaming!

 

[Halqyon]

You can also use the Emu 0404 USB, by connecting an optical cable to the HDTV-cable of the 360, an extremely easy solution, that in turn gives you great sound quality.

 

[Canon]

I like jgonino's suggesiton, personally I think if you find a nice vintage receiver you will be very happy. I have an older 80s model Realistic receiver that I have used for many years. I used to use it as my primary headphone amp before I got my Corda Headfive. It has a rather powerful and bassy sound but still manages to produce some detail, it would be a perfect match for gaming IMHO and certainly would probably be the best bang for the buck.

There's a boat load of this stuff on ebay and local flea markets. I'm not saying all vintage receivers are created equally but there's some good stuff to be had for cheap.

The idea of using the RCA to 1/8" jack conversion isn't really great because the XBOX is putting out a line level output which is not designed to drive headphones (this has been discussed at great length on these forums as I recall). You will want some type of amplifier to feed it into, it's your choice if you want to spend the extra money for a dedicated headphone amp or not.

As some have mentioned, there are some solutions that can take advantage of the optical output which may be benneficial but my guess is that if you are fragging out in COD, you aren't going to notice the difference unless you plan to use this as a source for music etc. which I guess is possible. I don't recall reading much about how well the 360 works as a transport, i'm guessing it can't be amazing but maybe a good start...

Don't forget to get a zipper with a lock for your wallet. LOL!

 

[kool bubba ice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canon /img/forum/go_quote.gif I like jgonino's suggesiton, personally I think if you find a nice vintage receiver you will be very happy. I have an older 80s model Realistic receiver that I have used for many years. I used to use it as my primary headphone amp before I got my Corda Headfive. It has a rather powerful and bassy sound but still manages to produce some detail, it would be a perfect match for gaming IMHO and certainly would probably be the best bang for the buck. There's a boat load of this stuff on ebay and local flea markets. I'm not saying all vintage receivers are created equally but there's some good stuff to be had for cheap. The idea of using the RCA to 1/8" jack conversion isn't really great because the XBOX is putting out a line level output which is not designed to drive headphones (this has been discussed at great length on these forums as I recall). You will want some type of amplifier to feed it into, it's your choice if you want to spend the extra money for a dedicated headphone amp or not. As some have mentioned, there are some solutions that can take advantage of the optical output which may be benneficial but my guess is that if you are fragging out in COD, you aren't going to notice the difference unless you plan to use this as a source for music etc. which I guess is possible. I don't recall reading much about how well the 360 works as a transport, i'm guessing it can't be amazing but maybe a good start... Don't forget to get a zipper with a lock for your wallet. LOL!

It's beyond atrocious..

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Quote:

I don't recall reading much about how well the 360 works as a transport, i'm guessing it can't be amazing but maybe a good start...

The 360 doesnst sound that great. The effects in the games sound significantly better than the movies or music you play on the 360. Not sure why, but thats my impression anyway. Music's probably the worst, movies are also passable.

 

[jgonino]

I agree.....it is a pretty poor transport. My $50 dollar Sony DVD player sounds better.

 

[JeffMac]

Totally agree -- as much as they want the 360 to be and do it all, I've only gotten decent results with what it does for games (for which I think it does fine).

But anything else? Forget it. DVD movies look better on my 40 dollar piece-o-dung DVD player. And it was so clunky as a media center extender (over wireless anyway) that I just didn't bother with music at all. Never tried CDs on it, probably for the same reason that I don't hit my head against brick walls.

 

[Sovelin]

This thread is revived

!

Actually, I was just wondering if I could connect my 360 to my TV with HDMI, and still use the RCA to adapter to amp to headphones solution. In other words, if I am using HDMI, will that override audio coming from the other port on the XBox? Or can I still use that?

 

[Edwood]

Definitely go for a multichannel set up. You don't need to have a full speaker rig to enjoy it either. You can opt for a cheaper all in one set up like Tritton.

TRITTON Technologies, Inc. - TRIAX900 AX 900


Or if budget's no limit, then you can go insane like I did and get a Smyth Research SVS Realiser set up. Which literally costs 20x the cost of the Tritton set up. (but sounds much much much better.)

Smyth Research

Any game that is developed on a PC first, or multi platform, usually has only 4.1 sound anyways, since Creative is literally holding back the entire industry when it comes to audio. Stupid legacy sound ruins it for the rest of us.

Don't believe me? Play some games and if you have a multi channel set up, set the receiver to center channel only, and enjoy the silence with most games.

-Ed

 

[uday1583]

Well, what do you need is just plug the headphone to the sound port of the XBox. If your headphone jack does not fit, you should get a converter from you headphone jack to the jack that will fit in Xbox sound port.

 

[Sovelin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uday1583 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, what do you need is just plug the headphone to the sound port of the XBox. If your headphone jack does not fit, you should get a converter from you headphone jack to the jack that will fit in Xbox sound port.

The XBox doesn't have a "sound port" to plug a headphone into. What I'm going to do instead is use the HDMI for video and the composite for audio. I can use a phono to mini adapter, then an amp, then headphones.