Hi there,
Today for the first time I connected Pulsar to the INput on my Syntakt (mono in) - and I noticed that when I monitored the sound with headphones, every time I touch the plug of my headphones (push it a little bit to the right) the signal in my headphones appears only in the left channel. When Pulsar is plugged into right IN and I push headphones plug again to the right, signal appears onlu in the right channel on my headphones. Why is that?
Thanks !
This has nothing to do with what I’m asking about… xD
What kind of cable is used with the Pulsar? Is it TRS balanced or unbalanced? I think the Syntakt inputs are balanced and the Pulsar output probably unbalanced. This can lead to strange effects, depending on the cable. Have you tried with a different cable?
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First, why are you pushing your headphone jack? Just an experiment?
My guess is that you’re shorting one side of the output to the headphone so it’s only delivering a mono signal image, or half of the sum.
As to why? I’m guessing this has to do with something along the lines of the previous post with the balanced output but it has nothing to do with the pulsar cable, it has to do with the headphone cable.
Generally, tip ring sleeve jacks have a ground / left / and right channels and the main output of pulsar (which I assume you’re using) should be a mono out which by sending as a mono in to syntakt is then summed and sent to both sides.
I don’t know if you’ve ever played with something that only sent unbalanced mono (not dual mono) to a headphone, or even something with unbalanced stereo output and then pulled out your headphone jack halfway (similar to how inserts work on a mixer), but the signal in the case of a single mono output is doubled so that the one ear mono image goes to both ears, or in the case of stereo then the left side (default mono) signal is usually delivered to both ears instead of the normal L/R.
I’m not going to pretend that I know exactly how the balanced outputs on the syntakt are wired but my guess is that in taking a mono in on the left it’s utilizing one arrangement of the Tip Ring Sleeve config, and the right (with the same ground) it’s being reversed. If that’s the case, when you nudge your headphone it probably somehow shorts the mirror side and leaves you with a mono image.
My guess is that the mono image switches between left side and right side depending on the input used and that’s why the ear changes (based on the fact that your headphone wire doesn’t change, it’s always the same TRS delivering L/R). I’m guessing that this doesn’t matter because a summed mono is the same L/R so there’s no stereo image to represent.
This is just deductive reasoning, don’t quote me on it, if someone has the magic bullet of truth I’m glad to default to a more complete understanding of what’s happening when you nudge the headphone jack.
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Thanks for the answer - I also noticed that I can’t hear the differences in panorama when hard panning sounds… (also on headphones) and again: when I gently push the headphones plug to the right the signal starts to react to my panning, so it outputs mono instead stereo - this must be input socket fault, right ?
Is it possible that the headphone input jack itself might have been disturbed? Maybe bumped into the back of a shelf or the wall with the headphone cable plugged in? That sounds like a different problem than the condition you first described but could be related if the underlying issue is in the jack itself.
Just thinking that when you physically move the plug, you’re having one ear or the other cut out, so without really knowing what’s going on with your machine it does sound like there could be a connection between the two?
So basically, if you made a sound with an LFO that auto hard pans L/R you aren’t getting any movement? It just stays centered?
If you have L/R monitors you can try this on, I’d test the same panning or a sound with some movement, just an individual sound not a whole track, if you hear the panning clearly try a different headphone adapter or another set of headphones than the ones you’ve been using (borrow some if you have to). If the problem persists with the second adapter and also the second set of headphones, I’d guess the headphone jack was damaged. I can’t think of a setting that would selectively impact the headphones and not the L/R out.
If the adapter does nothing with your headphone but another set of headphones somehow works normally, time for new headphones.
Problem solved - it was adapter from mini jack to big jack on my headphones…
Thanks guys for help 
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