Headphones, why 2.5mm? found 2.5->3.5 adapters Options

[yodabob]

OK, so here's another "weird" thang. The headphone jack on the SL6000 is a 2.5mm, not a 3.55mm which is the internationally recognized freakin' standard. I guess you could pound it in with a ball peen hammer, which I'm tempted to do, but there is an adapter available. Apparently the Treo 600 uses the same f****d up size, so here's a link to the stupid thing. Aaaarrrggghhhh !

http://www.handspring.com/products/Product...jhtml?id=410006

[yodabob]

Here's a Radio Shack part# for the required headphone adapter. Part# is 274-373 and costs about 4 bucks

[mk500]

Uh oh, this reminds me of the sound issue with the Palm Tungsten C. It was the first Palm PDA with integrated WiFi. I bought one, but then I found out that the "headphone" jack is actually a 2.5mm "headset" jack which is designed for mic and MONO sound, like most standard cellphones have (meant for VOIP, etc.). Palm's reasoning was that this is a "business tool". For that unit, adapters to standard 3.55mm headphones would give MONO sound only, coming out of two speakers. The users were incredulous, but in the end we all found that our units were incapable of producing stereo sound. Needless to say I returned mine, as MP3's/movies are important to me.

Are you sure the 6000 is stereo capable? Hopefully Sharp wouldn't do something as stupid as Palm did.

OK, so here's another "weird" thang.  The headphone jack on the SL6000 is a 2.5mm, not a 3.55mm which is the internationally recognized freakin' standard.  I guess you could pound it in with a ball peen hammer, which I'm tempted to do, but there is an adapter available.  Apparently the Treo 600 uses the same f****d up size, so here's a link to the stupid thing.  Aaaarrrggghhhh !
http://www.handspring.com/products/Product.jhtml?id=410006

[chapman]

No "uh, oh" is warranted. The SL-6000 is stereo. It sounds quite good.

I have a set of 2.5 mm plug headphones and a set of 3.5 mm plug headphones. The 2.5 mm set works as it should (separate channels are obvious on some of my MP3s) and the 3.5 mm works just as well, with a 3.5 to 2.5 mm adapter...

[chapman]

I just thought I'd add that my cellphone microphone/ear-piece thingy *seems* to work on the SL-6000, with the voice recorder.

VoIP anyone?

[gab74]

Good morning, what kind of headphones for Zaurus SL6000 ?
The standard stereo walkman headphones 3.5mm jack is too big for zaurus !

Where Can i buy one ?

[zaurusgeek]

I'm also looking for info on this jack. The docs simply call it a "stero headphone jacl", but I've seen references in the reviews to using headsets with mics. Anyone got any technical specs on this?

[smammon]

It's a fairly standard jack. Plug in a 2.5mm cellular headset and you can record/listen to voice memos - use zmeeting etc.

Get a 2.5mm to 1/8 stereo adapter from RadioShack and you can plug in standard walkman type headphones and listen in stereo...

[zaurusgeek]

How can it be both? A 3 conductor plug requires the sheild be ground. In the headphone app, both tip and ring are outputs. In the headset app, one is out and one is mic in. The physics of it aren't working for me.

[smammon]

Well, seeing as we have some intelegence in the hardware here it would seem to just depend on the software. Considering what computers do it's not really a huge leap that they could switch what's connected to one or two conductors on a jack based on what software is running...

Heck, even with my amaturish "understanding" of electronics and audio signals I'd think that at headphone level audio (at most) you don't even have to make it switch. Logically, one conductor must be both mic input and a channel output so just cap (ok probably a bandpass filter since it's audio) the outupt side so you aren't driving that with mic audio. You could always let the output go to the mic side. Won't have any effect unless there is software attempting to record it. Might even be used as a kind of mixer to lay music behind a voiceover...

Just to prove it to myself I just tried it all again. Plugged in a $10 cellular headset and recorded a voice memo - then played it back. Pulled that out and inserted my radioshack adapter and stereo headphone (without closing the voice memo app) and launched the media player. Then proceded to listen to Clapton in stereo whilst launching Hancom and opening a file. The music didn't even skip - and that is something my 1.7gHz Windoze box can't seem to manage.

[zaurusgeek]

Well I've done it now too and I'm a believer. I found a document describing how this auto-switching is typically done at
http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/uploads/docume...nts/WAN0134.pdf
and it makes sense. They obviously sense whether the tip-shield connection is low impedance (like a walkwan style headphone) or high impedance (like a mic) and turn the bias voltage on and off. Pretty smart, tho probably susceptable to failure if hi-fi type high impedance headphones are ever used (but that would require 2.5mm->3.5mm->1/4" conversion...not very pretty)

[redtree]

This must be why my Monsoon speakers will only play on one channel - I was wondering what was going on.

[zaurusgeek]

Yep, try putting a 50 ohm resistor across each spkr input and I bet you'll get both channels

[redtree]

Finding 50 ohm resistors, not mention the other bits I needed, proved a challenge in my little burgh, but then I got the bright idea of just using a pair of old cheap headphones I had lying around as the 'resistors' and just wiring them in by means of a 3.5 mm Y connector I also had lying around. Rube Goldberg would be proud, but it works slick as can be. Thanks for the tip!

The motivation, by the way, is that I wrote a little python app to grab random tracks off of my music server, stash them on the Zaurus and then play them back with madplay. I liked it a lot and rather than try and find a command line music player for the Windows box which the speakers were connected to, I thought I would just plug them into the Zaurus. Now I am a happy camper. :-)

[nevarrie]

For the fact that I have already lost my first adapter from Radio Shack I am looking at get headphones like the JAVOebuds.

From waht I can tell any of the headphones made for the Treo 600 or the sprint phones should work with the 6000. Though as of right now I have nto found any of teh 2.5mm headphones in the stores yet, but if I ask for the stero headphones for the Treo 600 people know what I am looking for.

Anyone else find any other headphones that already have the 2.5mm plug so I do nto have to carry an adapter?