[Parall3l]

Hi, I love my headphones they never really have the punch me in the chest kind of feel to them. So I figured that I should use a subwoofer with my cans. Does anyone know how to set them up ? A link to some kind of diagram would help a lot 
 
Thanks in advance 

 

[K93George]

A few steps you could take, I don't know what equipment you have though...

One way would be to use a source with a multi-channel out, imagine a Blu-Ray player with 7.1ch analog out.  You could simply send the 2 front channels to your headphone amp and the .1 channel to a subwoofer with a built-in crossover.

The highest quality would be to send a digital signal from your source, to a quality DAC that hopefully at least 4 RCA outs, 2 RCA + 2 RCA, you would then use one pair of the RCAs to send a signal to your subwoofer which would need a built-in crossover.  The other to your headphone amp.

Other methods but I need to know what you are using, outputs of said devices and such.  Try to be detailed.

 

[Parall3l]

Well I'm using a macbook so I think I'll need something like that fannywang duojack and then plug them into the cheap 2.1 pc speakers I have and my cans. Then unplug the 2 full range speakers and leave only the sub running. Is this correct ?

 

[K93George]

From what you are telling me you want to do it sounds right.  Use the 3.5mm jack to attach an adapter, a 3.5mm male to 2 x 3.5mm female. 

Like this for example
http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=118&sku=35506 

Then you could attach your computer speakers into one jack and the headphones in the other, as you mentioned.  You would need to unplug the 2 full-range speakers as you stated.  Easy done!

If you need a diagram I could draw one up... =)

 

[Uncle Erik]

If you search back a few years, there were some here who were using subwoofers with K-1000s. Can't remember now, but I recall that a few shared how they did the setup.

 

[Parall3l]

Thanks, UE, but I think those people would be using gear on a different level since they actually have to hear the subs, I only plan to feel them in my chest so I will be using a cheap solution 

 

[K93George]

You probably already know how to do it as it is exceptionally easy but I was bored, so I made a basic diagram :/

 

[Uncle Erik]

I'm not sure how you'd feel it without also hearing it.

And be careful with your placement. I've run the speakers and headphones at the same time and got some phasing.

 

[K93George]

Thats what I would expect to happen Erik, there is definitely going to be phase issues, if I was to use a subwoofer with headphones I would be looking at a standalone subwoofer with built in phase, and crossover. 

 

[sesshin]

I've done a lot of thinking about this actually. A Buttkicker would work better than a subwoofer due to it only being physical vibrations and not musical notes. It would give the illusion of a subwoofer without the phasing.
 
You still need to route the audio signal through a crossover though. The full-range signal goes to the headphones and everything from 100hz or so down would be low pass filtered with either a 12db or 24db slope.
 
If you run through a receiver you could use the sub-out and whatever their built in crossover is, but then you are stuck using the receiver's headphone jacks. Unless you are using the pre-outs, but then you are just adding more circuitry to the signal which kind of defeats the purpose of "audiophile quality".
 
Probably the best solution is to run the signal out of your computer into an external digital crossover such as the Behringer DCX2496. WIth the DCX2496 you could customize your crossover slopes then send separate signals to the headphone amp as well as the Buttkicker/subwoofer amp.
 
I plan on working this out at some point.

 

[Parall3l]

Thanks for the help guys, I'll see if I can get a splitter at my local electronics stores 

 

[Quest4theBest]

Quote:

You probably already know how to do it as it is exceptionally easy but I was bored, so I made a basic diagram :/

How would this impact the quality of the headphones if its being "split"?