Should Players be Allowed to Plug Headphones into the Gamepad?

[S0 B00sted]

I know in the past there have been rules against plugging headsets into the consoles. But honestly, why should it be banned when players already wear headphones while playing to drown out the crowd? This is especially true now that there's a spot right on the Gamepad for headphones to be plugged into.

The GamePad would just need to be left on it's cradle or plugged in to a wall outlet next to the TV or Wii U. This way they can block out the crowd and still be able to hear the game's sound. Speaker cable splitters are extremely cheap and easy to come by. If both players wanted to use headphones they could simply use a splitter. Personally I think this should be allowed. What do you guys think?

 

[Thundering TNT]

I see no problem with it, as long as someone isn't using it as a controller. (But how often is that going to come up?)

 

[GdspdUblkprzdnt]

As long as there's a slitter, yeah. No problem as far as I can see.

 

[Host Change]

I think its a good idea. I wouldn't have a problem with my opponent doing that and its something I'd take advantage of at larger tournaments.

 

[Raijinken]

Thing about putting headphones into consoles (or rather, into the TVs) is that without a splitter, this would give only one player sound, and also take sound from spectators. With the Gamepad, sound is produced separately from the TV itself. One player can play with the increased sound awareness from headphones, while the other would be able to still listen without headphones.

 

[Ozyroth]

I made this on a local tourney I helped with.
I used a headphone amp to get even 4 player able to plug headphones if they wanted to. This helped a lot because I was running the WiiU on BenQ monitors (no speakers).

 

[KillJay]

A better idea would be to do what I understand Oxyroth above did and what it appears Team Spooky does, which would be to run a headphone amp with a splitter and a few extension cords from the monitor/TV and offer players the ability to plug into the amp.

I'm getting stuff together to start streaming my locals, so I have this all planned out. I have a diagram, expertly MSpainted below, that shows how I do it. It came out a bit big, but it shows how I get it done.

 

[erico9001]

If you're looking for a good, inexpensive amp, get the fiio e5 portable amplifier. It's well known by audiophiles for being cheap and high quality at the same time. (25$ last time I checked). The e6 is fine too, but it has a cheaper, plastic frame, instead of the e5's sturdy metal frame. Chances are the e6 would end up being broken sooner than the e5 would be.

Hmm. I did a ton of research into this stuff. If you're looking for top quality headphones at an inexpensive price, you should really go for the Superlux HD 668b headphones. ~45$ last time I checked. They are semi noise cancelling, comfortable (ears fit inside of them), light, stays on your head but is not putting much pressure on it either, etc. However, the most defining quality of this pair of headphones is the intricacy of its sound. It plays the music you listen to as it was recorded. So, if you're looking for a pair of headphones to plug into your gamepad or 3ds, you may have found what you're looking for . How noise cancelling are the headphones that people at large tournaments use, though? Maybe a more noise cancelling headphone would be better for those huge events. I'm not sure though, these headphones may have enough.

-I might as well finish the package and let you know about the Sansa Clip+ MP3 player.

Spoiler: doesn't have to do with this discussion much

This MP3 is a solution to expensive ipods which require dacs and also replacement every few years. The Clip+ has ipod quality sound. It also has an external micro sd card slot, allowing you to easily and cheaply upgrade its size (these things are seriously cheap). You should probably upgrade the Clip+ with the rockbox operating system to vastly improve it (this is easier than it sounds).

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Anyways, my only concern for this idea is that with this set-up is, assuming each person has the same pair of headphones, there will be the same sound volume going to each headphone. Since people prefer sounds to be at different volumes, there could be conflict over what the volume should be set to. Introverts tend to prefer quieter sound levels and extroverts tend to prefer louder sound levels. In a study, if I recall correcty if introverts were listening to sounds that the extroverts preferred, the introverts performed worse at a memorization task. The same was true for extroverts, but when listening to the quieter sound that the introverts preferred. I think the best thing to do is to create a system with TWO amps, as then the two different players can adjust to their individual sound preferences.

Here's what the set-up could look like:

(not drawn to scale)

 

[palkia19]

A splitter would be good. The crowd can be a bit distractive at times. So yes, you should be able to.