Reducing my headphone volume?

[mynameismatt]

I'm currently using Sony 700 headphones with a Rane Empath mixer.

I'd like to somehow reduce the volume that comes out of the headphone jack. Currently, I barely turn the knob and it's too loud--or it's too quiet. I want to be able to reduce the volume so that I have more of a slope when using the headphone volume knob.

Hope that makes sense.

Can this easily be done?

edit: headphone attenuator...think I am looking for one of these for dj use.

[mariocastro]

how about a couple of resitors wired in series with your headphones? that would rise the impedance seen by the headphone out of your mixer, thus reducing volume....

[thermionic]

A couple of resistors in series with the headphone cable will not work; it will simply limit the current going to the headphone, rather than trim the gain - which is what you want to do.

Edited: Please see next post for diagram.

[Reticuli]

Radioshack and Koss both make cheap in-line volume controls. I think radioshack's is a little higher quality and cheaper.

[mynameismatt]

Justin's post is appreciated but I'm not very advanced with electronics yet.

I did take a pot off an old Rane piece and wired it up with a female and male 1/4" stereo connectors. It works, but it sounds inverted. So I must have a couple wires in the wrong place.

[thermionic]

The attachment shows you how to wire a passive pot attenuator, but it also indicates how to "slug" a resistor in series with the track of the internal headphone pot should you require.

The easiest way here will be to put a pot in series as you have already done, but wire it as shown.

Providing the pot has a resistance of upwards of 10K you should not have a problem (you could probably drive below a 1K pot without any problems, but I'm assuming you have a 10K or 50K pot to experiment with).

Although the headphone amp is designed to drive down to below a couple of hundred Ohms, you can get problems with frequency roll-off if the pot is too small.

If you have a problem with the pot you have at the moment, we'll tackle the issue if it arises - I suspect you should be ok.

Justin

[mynameismatt]

Thank you SO much for taking the time and doing that for me!