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Two Audio Sources, One Pair of Headphones?

EmeraldKiwi
By EmeraldKiwi
in Audio
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Go to solution Solved by corrado33,

You need a mixer. Putting it through the computer will make it laggy. The Y cable doesn't work like that. Trust me, I've tried. Now I have an Alto ZMX52 on my desk. Works great. Wasn't super expensive. $50 on amazon. But you also need cables to go with it which are not standard headphone jacks. They's 1/4" jacks (like the one for electric guitars and professional audio equipment in general) so you'll need to buy a few of those. I bought a bunch of 3.5mm jack to 1/4" jack adapters as well as some other things to make it work. Since the mixer has a seperate 1/4" jack for each channel  (left/right for both channel 1 and two as well as the output) you need 3 dual mono to stereo 1/4" jack plugs, as well as 3 1/4" plug to 3.5mm plug (headphone) adapter if you want to use normal aux cables. 

 

Actually, this looks like it'd work. You'd need 3 of them. This mixer will give you a chance to merge 2 audio sources (and 1 microphone source). I'm not exactly sure how the microphone source works, and I don't think it works with typical PC microphones. (I tried). You can also put an audio source on the aux in which will play over... everything. So technically you can merge 3 sources + one microphone.

 

YMP434-large.jpg

Posted

So I have an AT2020+ that I use for general game chat and whatnot, and a cool feature about this mic is that it has a 3.5mm audio jack on the side of the microphone to listen to yourself live with NO delay. I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD558s that I use for audio along with a Mayflower O2 ODAC/AMP combo. Now, normally what I'll do is take those crappy Apple headphones that everyone has and plug those into the mic, and have my 558s sit over those for my desktop audio. It works, but it gets uncomfortable really fast, not to mention the in-ears constantly fall out of my ears. 

 

Here is the question:

Is it possible to have my HD 558s listen to two audio sources at the same time?

 

So far, I only have two ideas, and I don't know what the outcomes of either one would be, so some help would be awesome.

 

Option 1:

Use a Y splitter like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/3-5mm-Stereo-Female-2-male-Y-splitter/dp/B00D683FR8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1475893768&sr=8-4&keywords=female+audio+splitter

and plug one male end into the DAC, the other male end into the mic, and have my headphones connected to the female end.

I don't know if this will work because I'm afraid it might make it play mic audio through one ear, and desktop audio through the other ear.

 

Option 2:

Use an auxiliary cable and plug one end into the mic, and one end into the PC and somehow monitor mic audio through software.

I don't know how to go about monitoring the mic audio in Windows 10, though.

 

Thanks for the help!

I'm not SAV1OUR. I promise. | Number of successfully bricked phones: 1 Samsung Galaxy S5 | 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

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You need a mixer. Putting it through the computer will make it laggy. The Y cable doesn't work like that. Trust me, I've tried. Now I have an Alto ZMX52 on my desk. Works great. Wasn't super expensive. $50 on amazon. But you also need cables to go with it which are not standard headphone jacks. They's 1/4" jacks (like the one for electric guitars and professional audio equipment in general) so you'll need to buy a few of those. I bought a bunch of 3.5mm jack to 1/4" jack adapters as well as some other things to make it work. Since the mixer has a seperate 1/4" jack for each channel  (left/right for both channel 1 and two as well as the output) you need 3 dual mono to stereo 1/4" jack plugs, as well as 3 1/4" plug to 3.5mm plug (headphone) adapter if you want to use normal aux cables. 

 

Actually, this looks like it'd work. You'd need 3 of them. This mixer will give you a chance to merge 2 audio sources (and 1 microphone source). I'm not exactly sure how the microphone source works, and I don't think it works with typical PC microphones. (I tried). You can also put an audio source on the aux in which will play over... everything. So technically you can merge 3 sources + one microphone.

 

YMP434-large.jpg

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5 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

You need a mixer. Putting it through the computer will make it laggy. The Y cable doesn't work like that. Trust me, I've tried. Now I have an Alto ZMX52 on my desk. Works great. Wasn't super expensive. $50 on amazon. But you also need cables to go with it which are not standard headphone jacks. They's 1/4" jacks (like the one for electric guitars and professional audio equipment in general) so you'll need to buy a few of those. I bought a bunch of 3.5mm jack to 1/4" jack adapters as well as some other things to make it work. Since the mixer has a seperate 1/4" jack for each channel  (left/right for both channel 1 and two as well as the output) you need 3 dual mono to stereo 1/4" jack plugs, as well as 3 1/4" plug to 3.5mm plug (headphone) adapter if you want to use normal aux cables. 

 

Actually, this looks like it'd work. You'd need 3 of them. -snip-

I didn't even think of a mixer. I was googling more about this topic, and a bunch of other people also said a mixer would probably be best. They also said a splitter might end up shorting something, so yeah... I don't wanna do that. I guess I'm gonna need a mixer then... Thanks so much for the reply!

I'm not SAV1OUR. I promise. | Number of successfully bricked phones: 1 Samsung Galaxy S5 | 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

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2 minutes ago, EmeraldKiwi said:

I didn't even think of a mixer. I was googling more about this topic, and a bunch of other people also said a mixer would probably be best. They also said a splitter might end up shorting something, so yeah... I don't wanna do that. I guess I'm gonna need a mixer then... Thanks so much for the reply!

Yeah, no problem. I love the mixer. I actually bought it so I could use some piano training software on my computer while getting the piano sound and accompaniment at the same time. But it's also great because my server sits right here as well so I can game or work on one computer and have the other playing a youtube video and mute whichever audio I don't currently want to hear. Yeah, I could do both with one PC, but for some things it's nice to have two. 

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50 minutes ago, EmeraldKiwi said:

So I have an AT2020+ that I use for general game chat and whatnot, and a cool feature about this mic is that it has a 3.5mm audio jack on the side of the microphone to listen to yourself live with NO delay. I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD558s that I use for audio along with a Mayflower O2 ODAC/AMP combo. Now, normally what I'll do is take those crappy Apple headphones that everyone has and plug those into the mic, and have my 558s sit over those for my desktop audio. It works, but it gets uncomfortable really fast, not to mention the in-ears constantly fall out of my ears. 

I've used inexpensive Behringer Headphone Amps and Mixers for years. They're decent enough quality and inexpensive.

Make sure you buy the 5-pack of 3.5mm to 6.35mm adapters if you plan on using standard consumer electronics with the mixer.

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  • 4 years later...
Posted

Audio Source combination is possible by using some small gadgets. Without gadgets, it may not be possible. To Combine Two Audio Sources Into One Headphone, some mentioned gadgets you may need like this

 

1. Rolls Mixer
2. Y Splitter Mini Stereo (2 to 1)
3. External USB Stereo Sound Adapter
4. Multiple-input Headphones
5. Dual Headphone Jack
6. Audio Mixer 2 Input 1 Output
7. 2 Optical Inputs into 1

 

You will feel real happiness when you can combine two audio sources into one headphone successfully.

 

Information Source: 
7 Ways to Combine Two Audio Sources into One Headphone

 

 

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Good little passive mixer: https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Channel-Audio-Passive-Recording/dp/B07Y2RYHFF?ref_=ast_sto_dp

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