Are all 1/4" speaker cables stereo?

Question

I'm working with a recording interface and a headphone amp. If I plug straight into the interface I get a normal stereo signal going to my headphones.

But when I plug into my headphone amp (1 input and 4 outputs) I get a lot more signal in the left ear. The headphone amp is supposed to be stereo.

This makes me think that the 1/4 cable I am running from the interface to the headphone amp is the problem. Do I need a special stereo cable for this?

Any other ideas on why I'm not getting balanced left and right signals?

Thanks

Answer 1

If you use your headphones directly, you get good stereo.  This means your headphones are working correctly.  If you plug into the headphone amp, you get more signal in the left ear than the right.  This could be the cable or the amp could have a problem.   The cable could be mono or it could be bad.  If they're 1/4 inch phone plugs you can just look at them.  At the tip, you see a very narrow ring around the shaft that insulates the tip from the shaft.  If there's a second ring about 1/4 inch behind the one at the tip, the cable is stereo.  If not, the cable is mono.  The link below leads to pictures of the phone plugs.  When you get to the switchcraft site, enter 280 in their search window and click on the search button.  Then click on the 280 1/4 little phone phone plugs 2-3 cond. link to get a picture that shows the difference between mono and stereo phone plugs.  1 and 2 are mono, 3 and 4 are stereo.  If it's a stereo cable try a different one.  This should tell you if the cable is bad.  If a different stereo cable doesn't help it must be the headphone amp.