How to Send Output to Headphones

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Level 2

245 points

How to Send Output to Headphones

Hi,

I'm trying to get my sound to output to headphones I have plugged into the headphone jack on the front of my Mac. When going to the Sound panel the choices shown are Internal Speakers, Line Out, and Digital Out. When I choose Internal Speakers, it plays from the speakers but not the headphones. I looked under Help and it says to select "Headphones" - but I do not see a Headphones option to pick. What am I missing?!

Mac Pro 8-Core Desktop, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Mar 16, 2010 10:58 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 16, 2010 3:20 PM in response to Jacki

Open your System Preferences and select Sound then the Output tab. You should see list of devices such as Internal Speakers, Line Out, Digital Out. Now plug in your headphones to the front of the Mac Pro. It should change from Internal to Headphones. If it doesn't then you probably have some bad phones or a bad port.

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Answer 2

Jacki Author

Level 2

245 points

Mar 17, 2010 9:44 AM in response to Stephen.Smith

Thanks so much for the response, Stephen... However, I have done this already and it does NOT change from "Internal" to "Headphones" like it used to. I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard - and I've seen a LOT of similar posts like mine so it seems it's definitely an issue - just haven't found anyone saying how to FIX it yet 😟

As far as bad headphones - I tried a few different ones and same thing happened. Weirdly, when I plug headphones in, it seems the computer IS "recognizing" them because iTunes will automatically open and start playing! Also, I have external speakers and have tried these headphones plugged into those speakers' output and they work fine. I just really want to get the headphone jack on the Mac itself working again...

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Answer 3

Jacki Author

Level 2

245 points

Mar 29, 2010 10:53 AM in response to Jacki

Update...

After spending 30 minutes on the phone with Apple (who was about to charge me $50) - they told me it was a hardware issue and to take it in for repair...

After that, I'd been searching on these discussion forums for days - and finally found someone post something SO simple that I could've kicked myself! But evidently I'm not the ONLY one who did this same thing - it should almost be a FAQ or something! Someone mentioned that you had to plug the headphone in all the way till you heard a CLICK. That was the problem the whole time! I was plugging it in, but just till it "stopped" and didn't realize you had to really SHOVE it in there to make it connect...! So anyway - all is well. I wish I could get back to that same Apple rep to tell them what the problem was, but then I do feel kinda stupid about it all now...!

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