Basic Sound Quality Question [ANSWERED]

pavichokche

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This question should have a pretty straight-forward answer (I hope). Essentially I want to know whether the quality of sound output from speakers or headphones would degrade if the output device is connected to the 3.5mm jack output of another device in series.

Ex:
Headphones connected to the 3.5mm output jack of a monitor, which in turn gets its input from the 3.5mm output of a desktop PC. Should the sound quality in the headphones be the exact same as if they were connected directly to the PC? If it isn't, what variables does it depend on?

Lastly, what if the connection was
Headphones -> speakers -> monitor -> PC (basically adding one more item in the chain)
Would the quality change then?

Thanks in advance, guys !
 
Last edited:
Okay, since no one here was able to help, I went to Yahoo Answers and got my question answered in less than an hour. Here is the full answer for any future reference:

"The longer the wires and the more connections and splitters along the way, the lower the sound quality. There is degradation by the resistances and noise levels and any magnetics. It could be very little and could be quite a bit depending on the exact setup. The connection into the monitor may get to the 3.5mm of the monitor by a simple bypass, or may feed into the audio circuitry and output a changed audio, and given the notoriously bad quality of monitor sound, it can get notably worse. In most cases though, the differences to an average user should not be critical because the audio originally from the computer is not particularly great, but there is a wide variation on that. The output from the computer is improved using digital HDMI instead of the analog audio of a 3.5mm or RCA output set. But again, that digital signal is lost to analog as it outputs again to headphones, this time converted by the monitor circuitry and quality can be either better or worse, but I expect the computer does a better job.
More items in the path degrade things further unless there is amplification and filter circuitry along the way."

-Andy L.
 

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