[tight_budget]

Hi guys,
 
I live in a small apartment, and I need a solution to enable me to watch TV or movies at night with my wife without disturbing the sleeping children.
 
Should I just get a splitter that lets me plug in two ¼ in headphone jacks? Or is there a dedicated box I can buy with two headphone jacks, that I can connect to my receiver?
 
I’ve used splitters before with 3.5mm jacks and they were terrible, often losing sound on one side of the headphone or losing sound completely. But maybe I just need to get a proper splitter from a reputable source and not ebay. J

 

[Currawong]

Yes, you need to get a proper splitter. If you're losing one channel when the headphones are plugged in then it's because the splitter is rubbish. Try Monoprice rather than eBay.

 

[ThinkAwesome]

A splitter will degrade audio quality. You are using an output meant for one pair with two. 
 
Possibly putting an amp between the source and the splitter may help, and there are splitters that boost for you. 
 
Also you might want to consider a headphone that has an output for daisy chaining headphones (they exist, not sure how comfortable it would be though to have another headphone running out of another. 
 
EDIT: I have used good simple y splitters before when watching stuff with friends and wanting to avoid noise violations. I usually have to bump up the volume a ton and use my earbuds else they will see a huge drop in audio volume and quality and I pretty much hear nothing. 
 
I'd try what Currawong suggested first to see if that works though.