Though there is a new trend of wireless headphones, the people who really care about the quality of music never chose anything other than Jack Extension Cable. If you one of them and want to upgrade your audio experience, then here are a few important things that you should know. It is a compact guide where we have discussed everything regarding the headphone cable.

Check out the difference between the headphone jack and the headphone plug.

The jack of the headphone is the electronic connector which is exclusively used for the analog audio signal. Manu people also recognize it as a phone jack, aux input, and audio jack. However, there are a few hdmi cable that are used for digital audio transmission as well.

In the audio industry, there are two types of connectors that are popularly known as male and female connectors. As per Wikipedia; “In electrical and mechanical trades and manufacturing, each half of a pair of mating connectors or fasteners is conventionally assigned the designation male or female.” However, we will describe the male connector as a plug and the female as a jack.

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of the headphone plug.

Conductors: No matter what is the plug size, each and every plug has a conductor which is the contact points for the plug to close the circuit. The number of conductors can be 2 to 5. The plug is known from the number of the conductor as the cable has 3 conductors then it will be called 3 conductor plug.

There are three parts in the conductor which are Tip, Ring, and Sleeve. While every conductor must have one Tip and Sleeve, the number of rings can be varied.

The headphone plug is known as the following name:

  • 2 conductor and 2 pole is called TS
  • 3 conductor and 3 pole is called TRS
  • 4 Conductor and 4 pole is called TRRS
  • 4 Conductor and 5 pole is called TRRRS

What are the roles of the headphone plug?

If you want to check what the headphone does, then check out the following section.

The headphone plug can:

  • Affect the quality of the audio it transmits indirectly
  • Affect the audio signal of the audio it transmits directly
  • State the capability of the cable

How many types of the audio signal are there those transmit through the Jack Extension Cable?

Generally, there are two basic types of signals that can be transmitted from the source to the headphone. The categories are:

  • Monaural or Mono
  • Stereophonic or Stereo

 The basic difference between these two main types of audio signals is that the mono signal works through one channel while the stereo signal works through two audio channels. The stereo signal makes an impression of natural hearing as different sounds come from different directions. It can be done by using two different audio channels by producing the sound in two separate speakers. This is called the ‘surround-sound’ effect. However, in the mono channel, all the sounds seem coming from one direction only.