Headset incompatibility

[Let'sgoflying!]

A friend tried out his DCs on my plane today and he could hear fine but when the phone plug was inserted, it completely jammed the audio on my Bose sets.
Looking at the plugs, his are two (ring and tip) connectors, while all mine are three connectors for stereo.

Is my intercom/jack set up miswired, or does he need a stereo adapter?

 

[gismo]

A friend tried out his DCs on my plane today and he could hear fine but when the phone plug was inserted, it completely jammed the audio on my Bose sets.
Looking at the plugs, his are two (ring and tip) connectors, while all mine are three connectors for stereo.

Is my intercom/jack set up miswired, or does he need a stereo adapter?

Your intercom is fine. Most intercoms drive multiple headsets in parallel and when you plug a mono headset into a stereo jack it shorts one channel to ground killing the audio in one ear on any stereo headset connected to the same outputs on the intercom. I've never actually seen a "stereo adapter" that would accomodate a mono headset on a stereo intercom but it would be easy to make one. Another option would be to add an extra jack wired for mono headsets in parallel with one channel on the stereo intercom.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

shorts one channel to ground killing the audio in one ear.

It killed all the audio; both earcups. I could just hear the asos if I maxed the radio volume.

 

[Ken Ibold]

What is the intercom brand? I have this same problem with the Sigtronics in my Pitts. It's coming out in favor of a PS Engineering intercom, courtesy of Lance. (Thanks again, Lance!)

 

[L10MAN]

Radio Shack. Used them on my stereo intercom and DC 10 headsets.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103725&cp=&origkw=mono+jack+to+stereo+plug&kw=mono+jack+to+stereo+plug&parentPage=search

Ron

 

[gismo]

Radio Shack. Used them on my stereo intercom and DC 10 headsets.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103725&cp=&origkw=mono+jack+to+stereo+plug&kw=mono+jack+to+stereo+plug&parentPage=search

Ron

That would work but there's a pretty good chance it will short the left and right channels together rendering all other headsets connected to the same source, to mono.

 

[gismo]

It killed all the audio; both earcups. I could just hear the asos if I maxed the radio volume.

Then I think your intercom is actually mono with stereo jacks. And if so, the Radio Shack adapter should work fine.