Adapter to use my headphones with stereo 1/2 TRS outs?

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easlern

easlern

Boredom artist
Hi guys- I just got a Delta 1010 but in my newbness failed to notice all the ins and outs are mono TRS. I want to use my headphones to play back while I record but I need to combine a pair of TRS outs so I can plug my headphones in. Are there adapters for this? Should I try making one? I can't use my other soundcard with the headphone jack for playback because my DAW (Ableton) can only route to one card at a time. Thanks!
 
You need a headphone amp. You can't really hook two balanced signals to a set of headphones gracefully.
 
easlern said:
Hi guys- I just got a Delta 1010 but in my newbness failed to notice all the ins and outs are mono TRS. I want to use my headphones to play back while I record but I need to combine a pair of TRS outs so I can plug my headphones in. Are there adapters for this? Should I try making one? I can't use my other soundcard with the headphone jack for playback because my DAW (Ableton) can only route to one card at a time. Thanks!
Click to expand...


Like Amoeba said, I believe that the 101 only has Line Outputs, which is a different level/impedance than what a Headphone Output drives.
As Farview says, you need a headphone amp.
As simple headphone amps go, I like to recommend the Rolls HA43. It has a single 1/4" stereo line input, and 4 stereo headphone outputs. You'd just need a Y cable to connect two of the line outputs of the 1010 to the Line in on the headphone amp.
 
I got a mono combiner and plugged my headphones in to that, so I can hear the stereo channels in mono at least. I figured it'd be line-level output like you guys suggested, but it's enough to drive these headphones. It's loud enough to monitor with too. I got some cheap instrument cable that I'm going to use to make an adapter. If I don't end up in hospital I'll let you guys know what I did.
I don't know much about sound engineering. Could running my headphones off this signal damage them?
 
easlern said:
Could running my headphones off this signal damage them?
Click to expand...
Any signal can blow the speaker cones out of headphones if it's turned up loud enough.

If you're asking if there's 'headphone signal' and 'regular signal' the answer is no.

.
 
In order to make this work you have to do two things.
1. Unbalance the signal
2. combine the left and right output to the tip and ring of a headphone jack.

Using unbalanced cables, plug on into each output. Go to rat shack and get a stereo to 2 mono adapter. Plug the two unbalanced cables into the mono ends of the adapter and the headphones into the stereo end.

Now, the card will not have enough power or the proper impedance to run the headphones. They will sound strange (because of the impedance mismatch) and when you couple that with the fact that mixing with headphones doesn't work very well either, well...you get the idea.

Get a headphone amp.
 
Thanks, scientist- I wasn't sure if there was a special electrical difference for headphones, so that answers it perfectly. :)
Okay, I'll check "rat shack". ;) If it drives the phones, good 'nuff. These are for cuing and clicks during tracking. Not doing mixing on these; I have monitors for that. Thanks!
 
just a mention-

the title says 1/2- you do mean 1/4 right? ;)

and 'mono trs' is non existant. a mono 1/4 is just a TS, stereo 1/4 is TRS.

just mentioning the terms.
 
Yeah, they're actually 1/4" jacks, mono. They say unbalanced/balanced in the manual so I guessed they were TRS; not sure on it. What I mean by 1/2 is that left channel comes out output 1 and right channel comes out output 2. I'm still learning! :)
 
TragikRemix said:
just a mention-

the title says 1/2- you do mean 1/4 right? ;)

and 'mono trs' is non existant. a mono 1/4 is just a TS, stereo 1/4 is TRS.

just mentioning the terms.
Click to expand...
Mono TRS is a balanced mono signal, TS is an unbalanced mono signal. Don't confuse the type of cable with the signal it's carrying.
 
Farview said:
In order to make this work you have to do two things.
1. Unbalance the signal
2. combine the left and right output to the tip and ring of a headphone jack.

Using unbalanced cables, plug on into each output. Go to rat shack and get a stereo to 2 mono adapter. Plug the two unbalanced cables into the mono ends of the adapter and the headphones into the stereo end.

Get a headphone amp.
Click to expand...

Jay:

While in this case, simplicity is probably the best advice, we should make sure that folks understand that for most active-balanced gear (the non-floating kind) this is the wrong way to connect an active-balanced output to an unbalanced input. The better way is to abandon the out-of-polarity or minus leg of the balanced output, leaving it floating, and just use one side, i.e, use a cable with a TRS plug into the output jack, but with the R connector left floating.

If you tie the minus leg to ground by, for instance, inserting a TS plug into the TRS output jack, problems may arise depending on the output type and where grounding occurs. Equipment with low output impedance will drive sizable currents into the ground. The lower the output impedance and the less short-circuit protection it has, the greater the current. If the ground connection is at the driven input, this can put noise on the technical ground and affect other electronics, particularly if the output begins to clip into the short circuit.

Of course, when a fellow just wants to use a balanced output pair to drive headphones, these subtleties aren't worth fooling with, but as a matter of good studio interconnection practice, the minus leg of a non-floating active balanced output should be left floating while the minus leg of a floating active balanced output should be grounded at the output terminals.

And again, get a headphone amp!

Otto
 
ok i knew there was something to TRS/TS, sorry for the mis-informative information.
 
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