Controlling volume of headphones, or is there another way?

[Wombat]

I've got crap hearing, and Mrs W can hear an ant fart from 15 miles away, and will insist on noticing it and being disturbed by it, so we need to be able to watch TV at somewhat different volumes. 
My TV (a Sony Bravia smart thing from 2016) has a headphone socket with a constant output level, so you can plug headphones in without affecting the speaker volume.

1st attempt, I try a bluetooth adaptor thingy, and use my Aftershokz bone conduction phones, which have a volume control, but of course I get the usual bluetooth delay, so I can hear disturbing snippets of the speaker output arguing with what I can hear through my headphones.

2nd attempt, plug in nice Sennheiser wired headphones, and get a ludicrously loud output, and obviously no volume control.  Ouch.

So, I see you can buy inline volume controls with an extension lead (but I've noticed most seem to have the volume control either in the middle or at the input end, which is barmy).  These all seem suspiciously cheap and nasty.  Is there a "proper" way of doing this? I have both open and closed (wired) Sennheiser headphones, as well as the bluetooth only Aftershokz.  Whatever I do, I'll need an extension of probably 3 metres.  I'm assuming all bluetooth stuff does the delay?

[Diver300]

You could get an extension lead and a lead with a volume control in it, if you need the volume control to be nearer.

The volume control for headphones is just a potentiometer or a variable resistor* and no active electronics. There is really no "better" way of doing it. Speakers aren't controlled like that because of the power losses, the need for a physically larger resistor to get rid of the heat and interesting effects of cone damping, none of which really apply to headphones.

*Electronics geeks will know the difference. You don't need to worry.

[Kim]

The 'proper' solution would likely be a headphone amplifier: Takes line-level audio and gives you a headphone output with volume control.

All you actually need is an appropriate potentiometer (dual channel and logarithmic), but fabricobbling something neat would be more effort than buying some appropriate chinesium.  I'd probably buy a sufficiently long cable with a volume control at the middle, and shorten the output end.

Bluetooth audio is always going to introduce a delay, on account of the buffering, packet-based transmission and more buffering.  Presumably it's within a frame or two of video so as not to break your BRANES with people's lip patterns lagging the sound...

ETA: Not even close.  34-300ms apparently.  I'd say that make Blueteeth inherently inappropriate for watching video, unless you don't lipread at all.  To say nothing of giving you a headphone feed when you can also hear it un-delayed through speakers^[1].


_{[1] Barakta's latest hearing aids have a streamer dongle which, amongst other things, can function as a lavalier microphone for someone you're trying to hear.  As the audio is transmitted by some 2.4GHz digital signal (which may or may not be actual Bluetooth), it arrives with a codec delay.  Which is fun if the hearing aid is set to mix room noise with what it's receiving.}

[lissotriton]

Some Bluetooth headphones have more latency than others. Some have a specific 'movie mode' or 'gaming mode' which should be less latency.
Though if you are using an adaptor, that would cause more delay anyway.

[chrisbainbridge]

The 'proper' solution would likely be a headphone amplifier: Takes line-level audio and gives you a headphone output with volume control.

All you actually need is an appropriate potentiometer (dual channel and logarithmic), but fabricobbling something neat would be more effort than buying some appropriate chinesium.  I'd probably buy a sufficiently long cable with a volume control at the middle, and shorten the output end.

Bluetooth audio is always going to introduce a delay, on account of the buffering, packet-based transmission and more buffering.  Presumably it's within a frame or two of video so as not to break your BRANES with people's lip patterns leading the sound...

ETA: Not even close.  34-300ms apparently.  I'd say that make Blueteeth inherently inappropriate for watching video, unless you don't lipread at all.  To say nothing of giving you a headphone feed when you can also hear it un-delayed through speakers^[1].


_{[1] Barakta's latest hearing aids have a streamer dongle which, amongst other things, can function as a lavalier microphone for someone you're trying to hear.  As the audio is transmitted by some 2.4GHz digital signal (which may or may not be actual Bluetooth), it arrives with a codec delay.  Which is fun if the hearing aid is set to mix room noise with what it's receiving.}

All audio and video transmission has variable delays in it. One of the pleasures of setting up ne streaming equipment is identifying the delay and compensating for it. I have a mixture of hdmi cameras, NDI camera and four different sound sources. 

[Kim]

Yes, but in a production environment delays are generally static and you can add additional delay where needed to keep things in sync.  Hard to add delay to the video output of a television to compensate for latent headphones, and with consumer-grade stuff that might change the size of its buffers according to network conditions, you might not be able to compensate at all.

[citoyen]

we need to be able to watch TV at somewhat different volumes.

In our house, the solution is subtitles.

I find subtitles distracting but less problematic than having the volume at a level that my wife can hear but makes my ears bleed.

Btw, please don't use Aftershokz if you're in company - they are leaky as fuck and very annoying for your companion. Has Mrs W not said anything to you? If not, it's because she's far too polite.

[Polar Bear]

FiL has a similar issue.  I bought him an online volume control 3.5mm male into TV, 3.5mm female for his headphone lead.  Between the socket and plug is a simple volume adjuster.  Cost less than £4 delivered from a company called Kenable.

He can have the TV volume muted or otherwise if he has guests watching with him.  It's a weird setup this fixed output volume malarky imo.

[Kim]

we need to be able to watch TV at somewhat different volumes.

In our house, the solution is subtitles.

Wellquite, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to be able to hear the audio as well, given that it's an easily solved problem and there's more to TV audio than dialogue.

[citoyen]

we need to be able to watch TV at somewhat different volumes.

In our house, the solution is subtitles.

Wellquite, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to be able to hear the audio as well, given that it's an easily solved problem and there's more to TV audio than dialogue.

Sure. I wasn't suggesting Wombat should make do with subtitles, just saying that's what we do in our house. I'm interested in knowing what the easy solutions are, which is why I looked at this thread. 

[menacing music]

[grams]

There’s a gadget for exactly this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3hKbl9f-U

[Polar Bear]

There’s a gadget for exactly this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3hKbl9f-U

I like that.  Having a black version would be even better but it's cool.  I wonder if the not FiL would go for it ...

[Wombat]

we need to be able to watch TV at somewhat different volumes.

In our house, the solution is subtitles.

I find subtitles distracting but less problematic than having the volume at a level that my wife can hear but makes my ears bleed.

Btw, please don't use Aftershokz if you're in company - they are leaky as fuck and very annoying for your companion. Has Mrs W not said anything to you? If not, it's because she's far too polite.

Mrs W, polite?  Er, no.  She has told me that she can hear it, but does grasp that my experiments with using them so I can hear resulting in a little temporary inconvenience for her, is fair game.  The alternative is me being completely cut off and being unable to hear certain programmes at all (most notably "Shetland" in which they mumble in the dark much of the time).  Most programmes and youtube videos are clear enough that we can reach a compromise on speaker volume level.  Of course, the crap quality of modern TV speakers has a lot to answer for. Sadly Mrs W also falls into the trap of "surely that's loud enough?" when the issue isn't volume, its sound quality. She just will not make any effort to speak TO ME rather than the wall, or the cat, from the other end of the room when there is something making a noise right next to me.  I had considered whether a sound bar may be part of a solution, but they all seem to use the TV ARC output that is already connected to the home cinema system (which is only used when we want to watch a film).  The whole thing is also complicated by having a cat that hates loud noises...

I'll try the extension lead and volume control first.  Any closed headphone system means I'm cut off from any conversation attempts by Mrs W, but hopefully my open ones without any delay, shouldn't be too bad for her, as at least the sound won't be arguing with what's coming out of the speaker.

[fruitcake]

A headphone amplifier could be connected to the TV with its wire taking a neat path (around the skirting board). The amp itself is a small box that could go on a table or a shelf near your chair. By plugging your headphone wire into the amp, you would avoid the need to trail a wire across the room.

Another advantage of a headphone amplifier: if you choose one with a tone control, you can add more bass or treble to suit the headphones you're using.

Photos of various different haedphone amps here.

On headphones, I find that entry-level headphones are bass heavy and poor for voice (entry level Sony headphones are typical of this). I'm told that headphones from AKG are designed to have flat frequency response and so they're as good as it gets for voice.

[Wombat]

Initial experiments with a cheapo inline volume control seem successful.  The headphones are two alternative types of Sennheisers, one open and the other very closed.  Each, of course, will have its own issues, including sound spillage in my wife's direction, and being cut off from surroundings for me. The idea of a headphone amp with a tone control sounds good, but I suspect it would have to be a full blown graphic equaliser to do the biz (long time since I've had one of those!).

Its all a bit overshadowed by the next audio issue, in that an update to my Synology NAS has effectively bricked my ancient Sonos box.  Choice, a new type Sonos box at £400, or a complete new Denon home cinema amp including that functionality and updating various other outdatedness for £439? Sonos can get stuffed, after their dismissive attitude to owners of their older equipment.

[aidan.f]

Or just a raspberry pi running moode audio*?  I haz one spare for a few ££'s you can use.  Just need to add a DAC.

* I like moode. other open source streaming options are available..