Splitters and adapters
I have an oldish Kensington dock which has separate jacks for headphones and microphone. Typical headsets have a combined 3.5mm pin. A while ago, I bought (what I thought was) a 3.5mm 2-male to 1-female adapter that I had connected to my apple earphones.
I was rewatching Scrubs and realized couldn't hear the part of the theme that goes to the right earphone. It's this thereminesque lilt that's quite distinct and one I remember well.
On checking, it turns out that the adapter wasn't working for stereo audio output at all. I was just hearing the left audio on both sides.
I then did a bit of Googling and GPTing. Turns out there's a difference between splitters and adapters (duh). What I have is likely a splitter. And I need an TRRS to TRS CTIA compatible adapter.
Needless to say, it was fun learning about pins and ports, and plugs and jacks, which adding to my confusion, is interchangebly used to mean pins. Like a 3.5mm jack aka the headphone jack.
Not that it matters much, but the stereo headphone is audio output while the mic is an input, which I hadn't given a moment.
- TRS means tip-ring-sleeve that's used for stereo audio and is typically used for headphones.
- TRRS is tip-ring-ring-sleeve used for headsets and support both stereo audio and microphone.
- CTIA is the more popular standard for where the second ring is the ground and the sleeve is for mic (cf. OMTP where the second ring and sleeve are reversed)
Searched Amazon for a "TRRS to TRS CTIA" and got a decent adapter.
Now, I can hear stereo audio and I am happy.