TV/Headphone question.

Author	Post
ChodeMasterJ Perpetual Marxist 5405 Posts 4/03	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 4:15AM I think I'm gonna buy an HDTV tomorrow and was wondering something. Clicky. It doesn't have a headphone jack on it, but is there some way (like with an adaptor or something) to hook up headphones to it via one of the audio RCA jacks that it has? The specs are all on the link above. I'm not too snazzy with stuff like this so I figured I'd ask you guys. If it's not possible I'll live but it'd be nice to be able to hook up headphones since I'm up in the middle of the night. Thanks for any help or advice. [Link]
Zoid Senior Member Boobies and Anal 2004 Posts 5/04	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 8:52AM Somebody will correct me if I am wrong, but I think it should be possible to connect headphones with this adapter: [Image not found DB] RCA (male) to 3.5mm stereo (female) [Link]
BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 9:26AM Audio jacks are not amplified to power headphones. My mother has TV Ears. They work well, and connect to the audio jacks you mention. FYI, this will not silence your TV. However, you can turn the volume down real low, then use the TV Ears volume control to get the listening volume on the headphones where you like it. [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 10:19AM Something else you could do. Last time I was at Best Buy, they had some decent looking wireless headphones made by Sennheiser. I'm assuming they have a built-in battery and amplifier in the headphones. They are rechargeable and pretty sleek looking. I'm guessing with the right adapter, you could connect the transmitter base to the TV's RCA output jacks. The reception might be a bit crappy if you get too far away from the transmitter but for line of sight it should be no problem. [Link]
loveporn Member 186 Posts 5/07	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 11:55AM hook tv to a surround sound system then you will have a headphone jack [Link]

Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 21 2009 : 8:46PM Your best bet is to buy a wireless headphone set. I've had a pair RCA WHP150 that came with a rechargeable battery pack for about 5 years and they still work. For this pair, you don't need to be in line-of-sight. I can be on the other side of the house and even outside and can still hear my tv, radio or computer when plugged in. It has two adjusts that tweaks the reception. I'm not sure if they still sell the model. It very well could be discontinued in place of a new model. Did a Google search and could only find a few places that had anything on it. Sorry I can't recommend a particular model as I haven't checked out any recently. Just make sure if you buy a pair, you can clearly hear from the other side of the house and outside. If you can't, that means that it's crap and take it back and look for one that will. Here's some different angle pics of it. [Image not found DB] [Image not found DB] [Image not found DB] [Link]
ChodeMasterJ Perpetual Marxist 5405 Posts 4/03	Posted - Sep 22 2009 : 2:16AM Awesome. Thanks for all the tips guys. As always, I appreciate the help. I got the tv today but haven't set it up yet, so I'll check out the headphone options. Lots of good ideas presented. Many thanks. [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Sep 22 2009 : 9:27AM Jordan1 - Are those RCAs circumaural or supraural? I have a pair of supraural Sennheisers. They sound great but the pressure on my ears just about kills me. [Link]
Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 22 2009 : 4:17PM ^ They are circumaural. They are very comfortable well-balanced headphones, and the sound is pretty good. I can wear them for a long time without discomfort. BTW, the adjustments I spoke about are located in two separate places. One is located on the bottom of the left ear section, and above that from top to bottom: 1. A red LED that alerts you it is turned on. 2. The on/off switch. 3. Charge input. 4. Volume wheel. 5. Adjustment wheel I spoke of above. 6. Another red LED after the adjustment wheel (5.) that shows solid without flickering means the reception is at its optimal setting. 7. Within the Radio Transmitter Base near the bottom, a green light will appear if it is sufficiently charged, and a red if it needs charging. When it's idle, there is no light until it detects a sound. The headphones don't have to be turned on for the light to come on. 8. Coiled battery charger input wire/plug. Unstretched is approx 10 inches which is attached to the rear of the Radio Transmitter Base. 9. The second adjustment (wheel) is on the rear of the Radio Transmitter Base which you cannot see on the second pic since it was shot from the front. 10. Rechargeable batteries location. (Right ear) [Image not found DB] [Image not found DB] P.S. Never thought about it until now that the charge input and the batteries are in separate ears. It seems it would make more sense to have them on the same ear, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Edited by - Jordan1 on 9/24/2009 3:44:54 PM [Link]
Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 23 2009 : 9:20AM Oops, forgot to mention that the headphone cord/jack is approx. 6ft. which also is attached to the rear of the Radio Transmitter Base. RandomPrecision, do your headphones have a similar configuration and/or features as the one I've layed out? Was there a particular reason you picked supraural headphones? Do they typically have better sound quality than circumaural ones, or was it because you didn't want the feel of bulky things hanging on your head and ears? Just wondering because I would think that the circumaural ones would be better for sound since they appear to block out peripherial noise better because they completely cover the ears, and luckily the pair I own are comfortable. Edited by - Jordan1 on 9/24/2009 3:46:03 PM [Link]
LubeNLuv Senior Member 1854 Posts 3/06	Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 10:46AM I have [ invalid url ] Yes, they require line of sight as they are infrared-based wireless. But I've got so many other wireless or wireless-signal-impacting devices running in the house (WiFi, Dect 6 phones, 2.4ghz devices, microwaves, dimmer switches, etc.) that I had to take the RCA and Sennheiser sets I got from Best Buy back to the store. They had static no matter how much I tried to isolate them. With Infrared I get crystal clear sound quality and zero interference. The only real issue is you have to be able to see the receiver but since I only wear them for late night TV viewing anyways, I'm sitting in front of the TV. Highly recommended, but a bit pricey. The surround sound really works too! I watched 3:10 to Yuma last night with these on and hearing the bullets whir around your head was pretty cool, better than my normal surround system due to close proximity of the speakers to your ears with the surround headphones. Edited by - LubenLuv on 9/24/2009 10:50:36 AM [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 12:43PM Jordan1 wrote: RandomPrecision, do your headphones have a similar configuration and/or features as the one I've layed out? Was there a particular reason you picked supraural headphones? Do they typically have better sound quality than circumaural ones, or was it because you didn't want the feel of bulky things hanging on your head and ears? Just wondering because I would think that the circumaural ones would be better for sound since they appear to block out peripherial noise better because they completely cover the ears, and luckily the pair I own are comfortable. Click to expand The Sennheisers I mentioned that I have aren't cordless. The reason I chose them was because good headphones are really hard to find where I live (I won't buy something like headphones online). If you want good ones that are inexpensive and available where you live, the field can easily narrow almost to nonexistence. I tried and failed to find good circumaural ones available for a good price in my area so I bought the best thing I could find. I actually have two sets of Sennheisers from the same line. One pair was much worse than the HD 497s that sound great from the factory. I took the pair I didn't like and made some circumaural cushions for them and also drilled out a lot of the plastic on the baffles so the sound would open up a bit more. Amazingly, although they're not too pretty to look at, they sound great (And could probably sound a lot better if I wasn't too lazy to keep tinkering). These are the HD 457s and they outright sucked from the factory. Anyway, I didn't expect the pads on the 497s to be outright painful when I bought them. It doesn't seem bad when you first put them on. It only really gets bad after about a half hour or so. Edited by - randomprecision on 9/24/2009 12:45:35 PM [Link]
Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 4:38PM After briefly reading the link that LubenLuv posted, I checked out what I suspected is probably incorrect terminology by me calling the thing that my headphones sits on an IR sensor since according to the information, it means a line-of-sight function that cannot go through walls, but mine do. I checked and found out that the correct name for it is Radio Transmitter Base. I've corrected the terminology in my previous posts. [Link]
Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 4:52PM LubeNLuv wrote: I have [ invalid url ] Yes, they require line of sight as they are infrared-based wireless. But I've got so many other wireless or wireless-signal-impacting devices running in the house (WiFi, Dect 6 phones, 2.4ghz devices, microwaves, dimmer switches, etc.) that I had to take the RCA and Sennheiser sets I got from Best Buy back to the store. They had static no matter how much I tried to isolate them. Click to expand Hmmmmm, I don't own a Dect 6 phone which I read is supposed to help prevent the problem you're having, but do have a cordless phone. After reading your plight, I used my cell phone using the blue tooth headset to call the cordless house phone while using WiFi, while the microwave was running while standing next to it, while using the cordless RCA headset which was plugged into my boom-box that I purchased in 1992 using the remote for the boom-box to change from AM to FM without a touch of static or interference of any kind. BTW, the boom-box is quite some distance away in another room from the microwave which is in the kitchen. I had to walk into the room to change from AM to FM, but immediately returned to the kitchen to stand in front of and next to the microwave. It sounds like I may have gotten lucky with my headset. BTW, did you notice any adjustment wheels on the units you purchased and returned? I assume that all of these types of headsets come with them. They have to be tweaked correctly to dial-in the reception to effectively block interference. [Link]
LubeNLuv Senior Member 1854 Posts 3/06	Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 10:22PM LOL, nice experiment. But the ones you've shown are 900mhz devices, one of the most crowded RF spectrums there are. Interference is natural for them which is why you have the "tweaking" knobs in the first place. If you didn't need them, they wouldn't give them to you. Seriously, I went through two sets of the RF-based ones and was really unhappy with the sound quality. Music listening was OK because music (Rock in my case) is loud and tends to be blaring non stop without a lot of quiet times. But for movies, where you have dialogue and lots of quiet moments between sound, they sounded like I had bee's swirling around inside of the cans. The ones you show also had a "feature" where, to save power, it would cut out if it didn't detect any sound coming through. This created terrible lag for me during movies where it would constantly be clipping dialogue off and on during quiet moments. Maybe I had a defective pair but I had similar problems with the Senn's I took back as well, which worked roughly the same way. But I tried the Sony ones and fell in love with them despite the limitations of needing to be sitting facing the TV. But then I don't tend to walk around the house while listening to TV that much either as it sounds like you might be doing. The sound quality is really outstanding for movies, playing a PS3 game late at night, etc. But hey, if you can stick your head in a microwave while wearing them and you like them...more power to ya! Edited by - LubenLuv on 9/24/2009 10:26:43 PM [Link]

Jordan1 Member Fishing, a fun hobby! 490 Posts 7/08	Posted - Sep 25 2009 : 1:09AM LubeNLuv wrote: The ones you show also had a "feature" where, to save power, it would cut out if it didn't detect any sound coming through. This created terrible lag for me during movies where it would constantly be clipping dialogue off and on during quiet moments. Maybe I had a defective pair but I had similar problems with the Senn's I took back as well, which worked roughly the same way. Click to expand That's the only problem I have with mine. It will also cut out if the source volume is too low. For example, when I use them with my computer, I have to turn the computer volume up almost all the way and adjust the volume level via the headphones which is the solution to preventing it from cutting out. This way, it will only cut out if there is virtually no sound whatsoever. LubeNLuv wrote: But hey, if you can stick your head in a microwave while wearing them and you like them...more power to ya! Click to expand Don't worry, my superduper headphones will protect me from any harmful microwaves. [Link]
TheLoner Member 157 Posts 4/03	Posted - Oct 6 2009 : 11:18PM Zoid's solution is the one I use for the audio jacks from my DVD player. I use that kind of adapter plus an extension cord and have no problems. The only downside is that unless your headphones come with built in volume control you're sometimes stuck with it being too quiet or too loud [Link]
BYOB_Kenobi Senior Member “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Kierkegaard 2684 Posts 8/09	Posted - Oct 7 2009 : 1:05AM RandomPrecision wrote: Jordan1 - Are those RCAs circumaural or supraural? I have a pair of supraural Sennheisers. They sound great but the pressure on my ears just about kills me. Click to expand I love my Sennheiser's! I have Sennheiser HD280 Silver. RP, if I decide to get a cheap pair of Sennheiser's for mobile use, how big are your ears (regarding your HD 497s)? Also, did you notice a break-in period or not? Edited by - BYOB_Kenobi on 10/7/2009 1:06:29 AM Edited by - BYOB_Kenobi on 10/7/2009 1:15:44 AM [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Oct 8 2009 : 2:45AM ^ My ears are average. Perhaps a bit smaller than average, Break in period - No. The 497s sounded great right out of the box. The main thing about portable use is that the cable is 9 feet long. You can use a twist tie but it's awkward and ugly. The worst thing about the 497s for portable use is that you're definitely not gonna blend wearing them in public. I don't use them for that. [Link]
BYOB_Kenobi Senior Member “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Kierkegaard 2684 Posts 8/09	Posted - Oct 8 2009 : 5:48PM RandomPrecision wrote: ^ My ears are average. Perhaps a bit smaller than average, Break in period - No. The 497s sounded great right out of the box. The main thing about portable use is that the cable is 9 feet long. You can use a twist tie but it's awkward and ugly. The worst thing about the 497s for portable use is that you're definitely not gonna blend wearing them in public. I don't use them for that. Click to expand Thanks for the info. What headphones do you use in public while mobile (Senns? if so what model?)? Also, how long have all of your Senns lasted to date w/o breaking or failing? Thanks. [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Oct 9 2009 : 2:10AM ^ I don't really use headphones for mobile. I have a cheap pair of bud type headphones that I intended to use for that purpose but they sound horrible. If you want something for mobile use that isn't gonna make you look like a fool, a lot of people recommend these. For the price, it would seem to be hard to go wrong with the good reviews they get from most people. I've had my 497s for about 5 years and I sit still enough to make a gay necrophile really excited so the wires don't get much wear. I've had no problems with them but they never leave my desk. I do sometimes run over the cable with my chair and a few times I've snagged the cable on the edge of the chair and yanked it pretty hard. Lately, I've been getting a bit of grittiness on some of the mids but I think that may be because I took the dust covers off the drivers and maybe some stuff got inside. [Link]
DrP0rn0 Senior Member 1836 Posts 5/04	Posted - Oct 9 2009 : 5:20PM I love my Sennheiser's! I have Sennheiser HD280 Silver. Click to expand I'm wearing my HD280s (in black) as I write this. I think they are kick ass for the money (~$99), but not the last word in headphone fidelity. The band on mine has cracked in multiple spots which I've wrapped to try to keep it all together. They're still working find and sorta holding together. I think I've had them for around 4 years and the cracks started about 2 years into owning them. I think they are a good value in their type of headphone. Dr. P [Link]
BYOB_Kenobi Senior Member “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Kierkegaard 2684 Posts 8/09	Posted - Oct 12 2009 : 1:26AM ^ Thanks RP for the info. DrP: I read about the head band cracking issue in many reviews, before I bought it but decided to try it anyway. It's funny cause I usually destroy or have these type of issues, but I've had my HD280 Silvers for > 3 years now, using them a lot - punishing the cord esp., and I still have not had any hardware issues (knock on wood). As for fidelity issues, not sure about this cause it's my first major quality (>$50) head phone purchase so I don't have much to compare too, but I find my Senns really good and found the limiting factor to be sound cards as opposed to my headphones, in a lot of cases! Edited by - BYOB_Kenobi on 10/12/2009 1:27:11 AM [Link]
DrP0rn0 Senior Member 1836 Posts 5/04	Posted - Oct 16 2009 : 8:03PM BYOB_Kenobi wrote: As for fidelity issues, not sure about this cause it's my first major quality (>$50) head phone purchase so I don't have much to compare too, but I find my Senns really good and found the limiting factor to be sound cards as opposed to my headphones, in a lot of cases! Click to expand I'm not saying they are bad quality. I'm just saying they have their obvious flaws. But I'm kind of a sound nut from way back, so "obvious" to me might be "really?" to other people. I'd be REALLY surprised if two different sound cards, both of good quality, sounded any different using these headphones. A crappy sound card versus a good one? That I can see. Dr. P [Link]
RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06	Posted - Oct 17 2009 : 9:24PM Almost all headphones have flaws. I think I'd be permanently satisfied with the HD 595s (for as long as they lasted). [Link]