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Hi all
I dont know if this is possible, but, I want to connect headphones to the speaker cables.
The goal is to find out what is actually being sent to the speakers.
I am assuming impedance is an issue.
I would connect the speaker cable ends to a headphone jack, but want to know if this is feasible.
thanks for your help
Edits: 07/07/15Follow Ups:
This is not going to work. It's a classic example of Percy Wilson's(long time equipment editor of Gramaphone magazine)Zanzibar Fallacy(Just Google Zanzibar Fallacy and The Audio Beat).
Of course, you can always hook up headphones to a headphone amp OR directly to the preamp out, actually. This can tell you if something on the amplifier-speaker side is really wrong.
How do you know your headphones are more accurate than your speakers? Each would still sound like itself, with neither as an objective "reference" for the other.
You can certainly proceed with caution with your proposed experiment. You would need to make or purchase an adaptor to run the two output channels of your amp into a stereo jack, then plug in the phones (keep them near you, but DON'T put them on yet!) and VERY gently raise the volume from zero to where you hear some sound from the phones. Then put them on and adjust the volume to an acceptable level It won't take much.
Headphones typically have a MUCH higher impedance than speakers, anywhere from 25 to a couple hundred Ohms, so they won't pull much current, AND sensitivity is not an issue, because they're right over your ears, so they'll require VERY little voltage to reach listening level. Too much volume to them can damage both them and your ears, so you might want to add a potentiometer between the amp and the phone jack of a value close to the nominal impedance of your phones, to give you more control of the volume.
But, again, why?
There is musical information on a CD. I want to know what it sounds like after it passes my DAC into a headphone amp. How should the music sound on a set of headphones. Detail, attack, soundstage... etc , any and all info that I can extract . That is my reference that I am looking to duplicate on a set of speakers.
My assumption is that its easier to get good sound and a representation of the music from headphones than a speaker in a room.
What I want to do is shoot for what I am missing on my home system....amp, speaker cables and speaker vs what I know is on a CD.
It appears that , based on your responses...its not possible.
One issue that might be decided upon as a result:
How good does your power amplifier sound when implemented as a headphone amplifier? A power amplifier is designed/intended for use with a different application than what headphones require.
Besides, taking a peak at the output stage via a pair of headphones won't reveal anything more than conjecture. It won't indicate how accurate the natural acoustics of the actual source material is from source to load. Like others have mentioned, the listening modality when listening to headphones is a different animal than when listening to loudspeakers within a room, and while hearing the listening environment itself, with very different issues to overcome.
"Detail, attack, soundstage... etc , any and all info that I can extract. That is my reference that I am looking to duplicate on a set of speakers."
OK, fair enough, but I wonder if those qualities can ever be realized to the same extent with ANY speakers as they can with good phones driven by a good dedicated headphone amp. Phones let you hear deeper into the recording because the drivers are right over your ears and external sound is at least somewhat blocked out.
Speakers have to interact with the room acoustic and compete with background noise, so you'll never get quite the same level of precision and detail from them. You can certainly find some speakers that do the detail-attack-soundstage thing better than others, and probably a nearfield setup with good studio monitors would get you the closest.
On the other hand, speakers capable of filling your house with dynamic, exciting sound with bass you can FEEL can be satisfying in a way that headphones just can't. I've heard some pretty good phones, but none that ever made me wanna get up 'n' boogie.
No one really knows what is on the cd. Every playback system will produce its own colorations of the sound. When I was engineering and we sent a master out to be mass produced what we got back never sounded the same as the master. If we played back the cd on our home systems it would sound different then played back in the studio control room. All you can do is put together gear that pleases you on the majority of music you listen to. Listening on headphones is a totally different experience then listening over speakers. You cannot compare the two
Alan
Agreed. IMHO, the best advice is not to do it, at all...
Without a speaker's load and the resulting interactions from cables and amp the test is largely invalid.
Regards
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