Making Your Headphones Wireless?

Chuck Chunder asks: "I've recently been looking at getting some wireless headphones of the RF rather than infra-red variety. After looking around for a bit it struck me that I don't actually want a whole new set of headphones. I already have a nice pair of headphones as well as earphones. What I really want is an RF transmitter and a small clip on receiver that I can plug my existing headphones/earphones into. The problem is, I can't find anyone selling what I am describing, even geeky places don't quite have what I'm looking for. Does anyone know/have experience of such a product?"

"I see several advantages to this:

• Adaptability: I can then use earphones/headphones as appropriate for the activity, or possibly use it as an RF link between hardware in different rooms
• Replacability: If I damage the headphones I only have to replace them, not the whole headphone/receiver unit; this bit will hopefully lead to...
• Lower costs

Has anyone seen something like this, before?"

Comments

This won't work

[PhysicsGenius]

RF devices suffer from a great deal of interference in the high-end band from sources such as sun spots, satellite traffic and meteor showers. Headphones, being small amplifiers, will only make this static louder. I suggest you buy a longer cord.

You mwan you want this?

[hackwrench]

Here?

cheap wireless unit for guitar

[incast]

you could try a very cheap guitar wireless unit. It'd be quite the hack, with a lot of 1/4"-1/8" adapters (and vice versa), but it'd work. My cheap wireless (a Nady Wireless One) has a range of about 1500 feet via a 235-ish mHz transmitter/receiver combo.

There's one here on eBay right now for $25.

FM Broadcast transmitter

[smurd]

I went through a bunch of "propriatary" headphones for watching tv. After problems with batteries, interference and the expense (if you step on the headphone, you need to buy a new transmitter). I decided to go with a real FM Broadcast band transmitter. I got me a Ramsey
FM 25 kit (it has to be a kit, FCC rules)
and have been loving life since. Some of the bennifits include:

• You can use any headphones that receive FM
• I can use a little pocket radio around the yard playing CNN
• Much more development effort and cost reduction goes into a mass market item than the big clunky "wireless" headphones
• It's "open source" (grin)

It took about 4 hours to build the kit and was not difficult (all components are through hole).
At $130, it''s not cheap initally, but you will wind up saving money in the long run.

Regurgitating false information

[pauldy]

Ok I've seen way to many of these posts dogging anything less that 900MHz or 2.4GHz. First to clarify why we like higher frequencies better. High Q circuits or the relationship between the cuttoff and ideal resonance gives us less interference with larger bandwidths at higher frequencies with less power lost. This is great for the ever shrinking world of electronics were we want less power loss cause we like batteries to last longer, smaller wavelengths shorter antennas/permeates through more structures easier... This however does not mean that circuits with a lower Q value like those you would find with the same bandwidth at a lower frequency lack any ability to reproduce the audible spectrum. Granted it does require more electronics to filter out things like harmonics and possible outside interference but that doesn't mean it will sound any worse that a 2.4GHz products. It is simply cheaper to make consumer goods like this and assume it is of a quality that is acceptable enough to be sold at a particular price point.

What I would recommend is you find a product that you can test out before purchasing or has a liberal enough return policy that you could use the product and decide if it works for you because a poorly designed 2.4GH product could sound far worse that a well designed 87-108MH product.

To examine what I'm talking about here further just search for resonant circuits on google.

Re:Have you considered a Walkman for receiving?

[cookd]

Or you buy the equivalent at Walmart for $10. Popular for using CD players in cars.

But I think this guy wants a little bit higher quality and longer range...