[Heyyoudvd]

I was looking through my headphone collection and it got me thinking, what's the deal with all the 1/4" adapters? They seem to come with most headphones and amps and most of them are nearly identical.

I've never purchased one of these adapters, yet I have 8 of them because they came with headphones I've purchased. And the strange thing is that of the 8 I have 6 of them are nearly identical. The two that came with Audio Technicas are a little different, in that they're silver and they screw on, but the other 6 are almost identical. Even though they all came from very different products (Grado, Sennheiser, Koss, Topping, etc...) they're all the usual gold snap-on 1/4" TRS connectors that look nearly identical. There are some tiny cosmetic difference (ie. the shade of gold varies the tiniest bit and the ridges around the base are slightly varied) but they look nearly identical.

I'm curious if anyone knows the answer. Is there one company that makes these adapters and the rest of the industry purchases from them? Because I can't imagine that all these headphone and amp manufacturers would be designing their own adapters, and if they did, it seems odd that they'd all be nearly identical.

 

[PurpleAngel]

I would assume the headphone manufacturers buy the adapters in bulk from whoever offers the lowest price.

 

[Audi5000]

funny, i was just thinking the same thing yesterday as I was going thru my shelves trying to find a female trrs cable for a project... (never found it though) and I have 16 adaptors, and only 4 variants. some silver some gold, most screw-on, and one with rubber grips. the most unique one is silver and has little micro pyramids instead of the grooved grip... they came with my Floyd Rose FR52's..

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I miss the 1970s when the only adapters were to connect twin lead TV antenna cable to coax for console video games. Fullsize headphones came with 1/4 inch TRS plugs and there was no discussion.

 

[Audi5000]

our music sources weren't in our pockets or at our work desk most of the time either ! ... not sure most kids have even ever seen a phono pre-amp in person.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

our music sources weren't in our pockets or at our work desk most of the time either ! ... not sure most kids have even ever seen a phono pre-amp in person.

or a record album, cassette tape, or 8 track