sweetspoting hel-80 headphone jack

I used my headphone jack for the first time today and noticed that you really have to "sweetspot" how far in you plug the headphones. If I plug them in to far then I only get sound out of the left phone. If its out too far the sound is garbled. Is this normal?

 

Thats normally caused by the jack on the headphones themselves not making proper fit into the socket. If you go to a store and compare jacks, they are not all equal.

 

I'd have to agree with pyro on that one. I don't use the best pair of earphones now that I don't have my Sennheiser's anymore, but I don't get that issue--even if I don't plug them in all the way the sound may not be as powerful, but it's still even.

 

I'll go look for another pair of headphones then. Both sets I tried did the same thing. I thought that the little headphone jack and plug size was universal.

 

The dimensions are universal, but that doesn't mean the shape is, or the exact placement for the contacts.. or the amount of surface devoted to the contacts.. (those little bands in the metal).. The metals used for both the contacts and the grounds are also up for whatever the manufacturer decides is good enough.

I know for a while Sony was rolling their own idea's kind of out of league with the rest of the industry... some sort of "if you stick with sony, it's guarenteed to work" type thing.

Thats not saying your jack isn't an oddball either, since again, there is a little variance in the doping from each part built.

Most manufactured items are considered good between 5-20% accurate to specification (little scary). Go buy resistors if you want to see what I mean.. Normally people have "problems" when you get to many of those "20%" variance items working together...

You might want to consider getting a contact aiding fluid... It's kind of like WD-40, but used to help electrical contacts work efficiently. Could also try blowing out the port with some canned air incase there is a little dust stuck inside. I've had feathers from a down pillow get stuck in network/modem jacks before and cause problems..

 

Yes, certainly. A duck once lived in my computer, too. It caused no end of problems.

 

That was just the Holiday Hawk...