Best way to listen to my TV with headphones? *Newb question*

[lee571]

I have an old Samsung LED TV with an aux out port. When I connect my headphones, it produces sound but I can't control the volume. There is also an Optical/Digital Out port but not sure how to use that. Basically, I would like to watch movies using headphones with volume control. My headphones are Koss KPH30i. I'm streaming Netflix, Disney+, and youtube videos. Sometimes I watch blurays on my PS3. My budget is up to ~$150.

Browsing the forums, I think I need a headphone amp, so I'm currently looking at the FX Audio DAC-X6. The Topping NX1s is also on my radar, which I figure I can use both for the TV and portably on my old iPod if I'm so inclined. Am I on the right track? Do I have other options? Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Cahudson42]

If you aren't overly concerned about it's (unknown?) measurements, consider for $30:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T5K48Q8/

I use one of these bluetooth connected to a Firestick with SHP9500 HP. Works fine for tv viewing.

It also appears it could connect via toslink audio to your tv.

With TVs w/o bt, you can get a $15-$20 toslink to bt transmitter..then pair it with the above on bt receive to make it wireless..

I'll look for one of the toslink to bt that I've bought..

Edit: The ones I bought are no longer available, but we're similar to this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08167XRZR/

It seems you can use either the tv 3.5mm audio out, or it's toslink out, to feed it. An advantage of toslink is your tv speakers remain connected, while if you use the 3.5mm, most likely the tv speakers will then be disconnected.

 

[maverickronin]

Those headphone are pretty efficient, so you don't necessarily need gain, but you do need something to control the volume.

If the TV's aux out is already clean (doesn't hiss or something) then a little amp like the NX1s would be a great choice. Amir already measured it and it's plenty clean. It's not the most powerful, but the KPH30i won't mind.

 

[lee571]

Cahudson42: Those look interesting since it will use my tv's toslink. Didn't even think about BT which my tv has. Good to know. Super affordable as well!

maverickronin: Good to know my Koss will handle it. I just listened to the aux out and didn't detect any hiss.

I may just buy everything mentioned and keep what works best. Thank you for the suggestions and info guys. I'll report back results.

 

[Zek]

I have an old Samsung LED TV with an aux out port.

Are there a headphone port on TV? That's weird you can't control the volume.

 

[lee571]

Are there a headphone port on TV? That's weird you can't control the volume.

Attached a picture of the headphone port. It's labeled 'Audio Out' in the photo. Yes, the volume will stay fixed and won't budge. I tried going thru all the menus without any success.

Forgot to mention that plugging headphones into the aux jack will still let me control the tv speakers. So you can listen to both the headphones (no volume control) and tv speakers with volume control at the same time.

 

[thunderchicken]

It'd be hard to beat a Topping DX3 Pro on your end table with a long toslink connection. I did that exact thing for a while. DX3 and Fidelio X2 running from an appleTV's optical out.

 

[JustAnandaDourEyedDude]

I have an old Samsung LED TV with an aux out port. When I connect my headphones, it produces sound but I can't control the volume. There is also an Optical/Digital Out port but not sure how to use that. Basically, I would like to watch movies using headphones with volume control. My headphones are Koss KPH30i. I'm streaming Netflix, Disney+, and youtube videos. Sometimes I watch blurays on my PS3. My budget is up to ~$150.

Browsing the forums, I think I need a headphone amp, so I'm currently looking at the FX Audio DAC-X6. The Topping NX1s is also on my radar, which I figure I can use both for the TV and portably on my old iPod if I'm so inclined. Am I on the right track? Do I have other options? Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I recommend a portable bluetooth receiver such as the excellent Q5K linked to below. You can plug your Koss into it, and it has plenty of power to drive them with its built-in headphone amp, no need for a separate amp. The Q5K may even be usable as a dac-amp amp (not in bluetooth mode) for your iPod, though you would have to research the compatibility of that. Using a lightweight portable BT receiver that can be clipped onto your shirt pocket, such as the Q5K, would free you up (to move around) from being tethered to a wired amp. I alternate between two such pocketable BT receivers to effectively achieve infinite battery runtime.
Qudelix-5K ($110)
ASR Review of Qudelix-5K Bluetooth DAC & Headphone Amp

Since your TV has bluetooth transmission, you could pair the Q5K with the TV directly. However, to get better bluetooth transmission rate (aptX HD quality) and thus better fidelity than the BT of your TV likely supports, one of the following bluetooth transmitters connected to the Toslink output of your TV would be suitable (each around $40). I have used models of each generation of aptX HD tranceivers, and I found that newer generations that use one or two external antennas give a step up in transmission range and signal stability.

https://www.amazon.com/BANIGIPA-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Pass-Through/dp/B07WCRRFTB
https://www.amazon.com/TECBOSS-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B07WP3DGPB
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-5-0-Transmitter-MANLI-Receiver/dp/B07SN2NLV3
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Headphone-Rainyb/dp/B07K9PGX5X
https://www.amazon.com/Golvery-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless/dp/B07MNZL2QC
https://www.amazon.com/Blueshadow-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Receiver-Headphones/dp/B08HYFSF3X?th=1

Please note that including one of the above BT transceivers may land you a couple of bucks above your stated budget limit. I believe each includes a Toslink cable and a built-in battery; they also include an aux cable and a micro-USB charging cable. I find that just keeping the BT transmitter plugged into a phone charger frees me up from regularly plugging and unplugging it into the charger. The button with the opposed arrows forces pairing mode. I use the aptX HD codec mode which is a significant increase in bitrate over default SBC codec bitrate, and I have not noticed any audio latency or speech lag while watching TV (Blu-ray movies). If you are sensitive to lag, and if your TV does not enable you to set a video lag to compensate for audio lag, then you could switch to the aptX LL (Low Latency) mode which sacrifices a little bitrate to bring latency below 40ms.

Please see also the discussion in https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-about-bluetooth-emitters.17152/

 

[lee571]

It'd be hard to beat a Topping DX3 Pro on your end table with a long toslink connection. I did that exact thing for a while. DX3 and Fidelio X2 running from an appleTV's optical out.

Ha, that looks excellent with great reviews but a bit over my budget. Reading up on it did lead me to the Topping MX3 which looks like a jack of all trades with speaker outs for future expansion..

I recommend a portable bluetooth receiver ...

This is very interesting! Am reading through it and the BT transmitter thread. Thank you.

My amazon cart is growing by the day.

 

[thunderchicken]

I own a Q5K and while it's wonderful with IEMs, it's not really powerful enough for my full-sized headphones. It pretty quickly runs out of steam with the DT880 Black, for example. Most portables will leave you in that position. The Q5K works great with Etys (ER3XR and ER4XR) and my KZ ZS6 though. Highly recommend that thing if you like portable stuff. It measured better than the ES100 and is all-metal. The ES100 is easier to use though, and I didn't think much about that aspect until right now. I'd keep the ES100 for that reason alone if the Q5K wasn't a gift, but YMMV. Both have really similar features.