Television optical out to headphone amplifier

mattius1989

mattius1989

mattius1989

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Kent
Hi.

I'm currently running an LX5090 TV with the OEM soundbar which is hooked up through stereo speaker wire connectors. It sounds great, but the thing is really loud for late night viewing and i find myself making adjustments on the remote constantly for the sake of my housemate. This really pulls me out of what I'm watching. I want to have a set of decent cinema headphones that I can turn to in the midnight hour but need some advice on the connectivity and equipment I need.

I've tried plugging into the headphone port on the side of the TV but that obviously cuts out the soundbar sound and I don't want to have to keep plugging and unplugging connections. By my deductions, that leaves an optical out which will run to a headphone amplifier. I've tried a cable in the port and it leave the soundbar output intact but i don't have anything to run it to at present to be sure that it won't be an issue once it's all eventually set up.

Have any of you had experience with this? Will it cut out the TV sound or work independently? If this will work, can you recommend a decent amplifier and set of headphones?
 
Does the sound bar have an optical digital input? I would look at something like a separate DAC/headphone amp like the beresford bushmaster which is a lovely piece of kit and I use it for my setup for Apple TV and virgin media. This would allow you to run the optical into the DAC and use the analogue out for the sound bar and then the headphone port for the cans. I don't think you'll have to unplug everything with this option.
 
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Speaker wires as in red and white phono or bare speaker wire? What's the model of the sound bar?

Have adjusted my reply above to make myself clearer.
 
Makes things a little more difficult. You could buy a proper separate amplifier to drive both headphones and the soundbar, or go for a headphone amplifier which can use the optical output. Otherwise you're a bit stuck I'm afraid.
 
I thought about the optical out of the telly to a headphone amp. Would the headphones amp control the volume?

The more I read into it, the more I'm thinking I would be best off picking up a cheap hdmi av receiver and run everything through that to the telly.
 
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mattius1989 said:
I thought about the optical out of the telly to a headphone amp. Would the headphones amp control the volume?
Click to expand...

Obviously it would that is the job of an amp to control the volume.

Optical out into a Schiit DAC / AMP Combo and then it depends on the sound signature you want. For movies I'd want a set of AKG's like the Q702 or K702, etc, if you want more bass then you can mod them or buy fidelio X2's. For music it has to be sennheiser HD600's or HD650's.

For all rounders it would have to be AKG Q701's.
 
Thanks.

It's occurred to me that I've got an old LG all in one DVD receiver in the loft that accepts optical in and has a headphone out. I'll get this out tonight so I can test the optical out of the TV.

What sort of difference is there between this and dedicated headphone amps and what are the deciding technical attributes I need to look for in a solid headphone amp?
 
mattius1989 said:
Thanks.

It's occurred to me that I've got an old LG all in one DVD receiver in the loft that accepts optical in and has a headphone out. I'll get this out tonight so I can test the optical out of the TV.

What sort of difference is there between this and dedicated headphone amps and what are the deciding technical attributes I need to look for in a solid headphone amp?
Click to expand...

Dedicated parts have much better DAC's and the AMP is a lot better at pushing decent headphones which require much more power than a dvd player or a tv can provide.

As for what to look in a dedicated DAC and a dedicated AMP just buy whatever you can easily afford from schiit. I have tested DAC/AMP's from £10 all the way up to £800. The sweet spot is around the £120-£250 mark. Any more and there is very little you gain for what you pay. Pay less and you can hear their deficiencies without looking for them.

http://schiit.eu.com/

these come highly recommended for your use

http://schiit.eu.com/dacs/modi-2-uber

combined with

http://schiit.eu.com/amps/vali-2
 
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