I mean even Senny's HD 570 come with a 1/8" plug standard and have an addaptor. Why do they make us use that adaptor if in the end it's still 1/8" plug at the end of headphone cable that delivers the juice to the cans?

My guess: Backwards compatibility for older headphones that used 1/4" jacks.

Another guess: more sturdy.

1/4" TRS is definitely sturdier/stronger (used almost exclusively with musician stage gear type stuff, afaik). It's also easy to plug/unplug quickly, which is probably one reason why it's so widely used in pro mics, electric guitars, keyboards, etc. (take a look at an old modular analog synth with patch cords sometime...).

prolly true, but my question is why does it exist in consumer receivers? I have never in my life seen a headphone that had a 1/4" plug.

You must not have lived very long The 1/4 inch PHONE plug (called this because it was the plug used in old telephone switchboards) was the common way for headphones to connect to home receivers, at least through the mid 90's. It was not unitl the advent of mini plug use in computer sound cards (and portable sound devices) that you began seeing headphones that used 1/8 inch mini plug as a standard. Now it is hard to find headphones that use 1/4 inch phone plug. Fortunately, you can get adapters to go either way.

I used to have a pair of HD 530 and have a pair of HD 540 now. Both are/were > 5 years old and have 1/4 plugs (so I need an adaptor to connect them to my PC).

well my old TV had a weired plug for headphones. it was a large circle, about 1 cm in diameter. it had tiny holes along the top half of the circumference and a thicker one (but still tiny) at the bottom do you know what that called?

Many "higher end" headphones have a miniplug with a screw-on (rather than plug-on) 1/4" adapter, and some have only a 1/4" plug, requiring a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter for portable use (bulky). A few exotic models have dual-mono/balanced connectors.

Agreed with mdmuir, older headphones (before portables) almost exclusively had 1/4" plug, and so did most home/component stereo equipment.

I think the change rather came around the time Walkmans (or is it "walkmen"? ) were becoming popular. This was in the early 80s.
Most home equipment from that time preferred the 1/4 plug and the old helicopter-pilot headphones. When the time for smaller headphones came, the need for a smaller plug (I have never seen 1/4 in a portable) came with it.
Over time, the 1/8 plug has become the standard, thank God.

Obsolete.

Not so fast on praising the lord there... How many times have you found 1/8" plugs jacks to have intermittent connections, having to jiggle them to get both channels, etc? My last soundcard replacement was the PCI128 I had... because the 1/8" output jack had become unreliable and intermittent.

Similar things can happen with the 1/4" jacks too. Just ask any electric guitarist. And they use MONO cables.

Yeah, that's true... they can probably take quite a bit more abuse than minijacks though (more surface area, and they're usually built more solid).

My JVC headphones have an 1/4 jack and my Marantz amplifier supports it.
I am not sure, but I think that using adapters may cause some additional "data loss".

my sennheiser hd580-precision is 3 years old
it comes with the 1/4" plug to

i even have the chance to exchange the kabel to the new one with 1/8"
but i will not do it... my audigy2 platinum front has 1/4" phone jacks :-)

Everytime on souncards and 1/8 to 1/4 adapters.
Never on Walkman heaphone outputs.


It's called DIN.

Weird, I had a problem with mini-Jack only once - dirt got into socket, cleaning it helped.
No problems since. Maybe I just got lucky.

@Pio: It is a mini-DIN, which looks similar to PS/2. Normal DIN is 2 cm in diameter.

never! but it's my #1 concern!

@AstralStorm: Are you sure about that? I have many of old hifi components, and I always thought they had DIN plugs. I thought mini-DIN has (approx.) the size of a PS/2-plug for the keyboard / mouse (or is it mini-DIN?). And the old keyboard connectors (in that times where mice had serial (9 pin) connectors) had DIN. I never saw a plug with 2 cm of diameter.
BTW: it's a pain in the ass to solder those DIN/(mini-DIN?) plugs!

Regards, fileman.

DIN connectors have a diameter of 13 mm. and were used by old keybords. I guess Astralstorm approximated the size a bit

Hell, I even have few of these myself...
A measurement shows 13 mm indeed - mini-DIN is 6 mm.

Actually worse things than that have happened to me. The Y-adapter cable that I was running from my computer to my amp was a little too short for comfort. No big deal (or so it seemed), but it was a bit of a stretch. However, one day as I was pulling my tower out from under my desk I heard a slight snap in behind. I went on with what I was doing (not bothering to look at the cord) and then when I got my system running again I noticed that I was only getting sound out of one channel. I fiddled with the cord for a few minutes before I took it out and noticed that the tip of the 1/8" plug was gone. Later on when I took the sound card out to investigated I saw that the tip was lodged inside of the front speaker connecter. Whatever mechanism holds the plug in place was not about to let go of that little piece of metal any time soon and this, of course meant no other plug could fit inside . . . . . . oh well time for a new sound card. (good thing it was just an SB Live)

They make a satisfying SNAP when they get jacked in. A lot of studio equipment still uses them for headphone out. the higher end of most headphone companies' lines are wired with 1/4"

Is anyone else afraid of just snapping off their mini plugs off? I've bent plenty.

I'd rather ask: why do 1/8" plugs exist, on receivers etc.

I hate them ever since I had a receiver with a 1/8" headphone out, which was broken. It acted like a centercut, interesting to listen to but very annoying when you didn't want to listen to it that way.

My AKG K-240 Monitor headphones also have a screw-on 1/4" adapter, and I'm very happy about that.

I've always had less problems with 1/4" jacks. Maybe because manufacturing tolernces are much the same regardless of form, so the larger size will have a better margin of error. This becomes more important if the socket manufacturer is not the plug manufacturer, generally the case.

1/4" jacks survive walking away with the phones on much better too

UJ

Because the vast majority of professional equipment has 6.3mm phone jacks on it as they are far sturdier than the 3.5mm minijacks. The higher end sennheiser cross over between studio and hifi use. The HD650 for example are wired with a 6.3mm jack and ship with an adaptor to 3.5mm where as the HD25 are wired with 3.5mm and a converter to 6.3mm.

It's much easier to replace a 3.5mm -> 6.3mm converter or even the entire headphone cable than it is to replace a socket on a bit of equipment.

i always ask for 1/4" to replace any 1/8" that might come with my headphone standard when i get them recabled. it does not show wear as fast, nor lose connection and is far sturdier and less prone to breaking down the road.

only my portable electronics use the small one, all units i consider of some worth use the 1/4" plug.

Is there a sound card with 6.3mm sockets?

Wow, Zombies walk the earth, the end is neigh! boy was I surprised to see my post from 2003 on front page in 2007, cool

RME DIGI96 has 1/4" sockets.

I remember one that had an external connector, and there, 6.3'' terminals.
I don't know where did i see it, but it was a professional card, possibly one of those that have several stereo inputs, for multi-recording.

This is kind of a funny thread besides the fact that it was resurrected from a 3-and-a-half year slumber.

I see all this metric/standard speak and wanted to state that the most precise measurements for the two sizes being discussed are 1/4" and 3.5mm. 6.3mm is a much closer approximation to 1/4" than 1/8" is to 3.5mm, however, but it is still just an approximation.

Anyone remember the 2.5mm jack?

Edit: grammar

6.3" terminals? Gee, that's... big

I'll use mm measurements; I'm a metric freak, so sue me

I see one on my JVC deck (ca. 70s). It has the label "Remote", and located between the 3.5mm sockets of L and R mics.

Still can't figure out what that socket is for...

OffTopic: Am I correct in using the term "jack" for the male plug and "socket" for the, um, female counterpart?

1/4" is more precise and requires fewer keystrokes.

I believe it is for receiving remote control signals from a pass-through on the receiver.

"Jack" and "socket" both refer to the female outlet. "Plug" is the term for the male counterpart.

Many higher-end headphones have 1/4" connectors, and 1/4" to 3.5mm adapters are much sturdier than 3.5mm to 1/4".

LOL! XD I knew i had written something wrong, but i didn't care to verify..

And.. about that 2.5mm connector, i had a mic which had an "on/off" button which was connected to this plug ( i.e. the mic had the 3.5mm one, and the 2.5mm, side by side)

Also, 2.5mm is the new "toy" for portables... ipod, mp4 players... mobile phones..

My Sennheiser HD555 is a 1/4" (but came with an adapter), and my Pioneer and Denon amps have 1/4" plugs. The Pioneer input is kinda shaky though :/

Hmm... saves only 0.15 seconds when typing. I'll stick with mm

Now I recall, there's this binaural mic accessory with the strangest-looking 3-plug end: L-mic, R-mic, and remote. But since I don't have the binaural mic, I don't know what that's supposed to do. But the binaural mic is cool: mounted on a plastic human head, on its left & right ear.

So, Jack is a female... I always thought that Jack is a male, and the female should be Jill