I've been trying to setup my POs to sync in a way that maximizes audio quality. Tricky to describe without creating a diagram, but I'll try:
- PO-12 set to SYN1, outputting to a 3.5mm stereo > 3.5mm mono splitter.
- Splitter Tip (left) out: Is click track, going to a Belkin Rockstar 5-way headphone splitter
- Splitter Sleeve (right) out: Is PO-12 audio, going to @darenager 's passive mixer. (Also using a stereo > mono coupler on this channel to get psuedo stereo, instead of panned hard right audio from PO-12)
- All 4 other POs set to SYN4 take click track in from Belkin 5-way headphone splitter
- All 4 other POs output to go to passive mixer
- Also using a FiiO A1 Portable Headphone Amplifier on passive mixer out to boost signal
This rig is cool and works pretty well, giving me an all PO setup that is all battery, needing no external click source (no iPhone click track app or Volca, etc).
However to finally get to the meat of the issue, I can faintly hear the click track generated by the PO12 when I hit play on the PO12. :(.
I simplified my setup to produce the most reduced case as follows:
PO12 (SYN1) OUT -> 3.5mm Splitter: Left channel -> PO-14 (SYN4) IN > Headphones
In this setup I can hear the click track, faintly, but enough that it is clearly audible.
If I do a more traditional setup, I don't hear the click track:
PO12 (SYN1) OUT -> Normal 3.5mm Cable -> PO-14 (SYN4) IN -> Headphones
It works as expected.
So this lead me to believe, maybe my splitter cable is not isolating the two channel well. So as an experiment I tried this:
PO12 (SYN1) OUT -> 3.5mm Splitter: Left channel -> Headphones
And I sure can't hear any bleed over between the channels on my headphones. The click track seems isolated to one channel to me.
I'm pretty stumped at this point. Maybe there is some way that the POs interact with the splitter that my headphones don't. If anyone has any theories, or a known splitter cable that works (I'm using this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000068O5H/) I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks for checking out my crazy setup.