Been wondering this for as long as I have owned my Uniti Star.
Does anyone know what the reason was for Naim to use a 3.5mm jack instead of a 6.3mm? The larger jacks have always seemed to be more physically stable to me. With my Star I am always very aware that no undue sideways force is applied to the connection.
It appears industry standard for mobile-ish (lower market?) devices & smartphones, where the output may be connected to another amp or used as another feed. IIRC, many headphones come with converters.
I think its what HL said
Yes, I believe it’s all the multi-purpose, all-in-one units that have the small jack, for the above reasons.
My Superuniti was 3.5 but my SN2 is 6.3.
The SU was a great piece of kit, but I was also very conscious of the adapter sticking out of the small jack.
Yeah luckily mine came with a jack from 6.3 to 3.5. It was just kind of weird to have to do that to connect to Naim kit.
Chose headphones that has a long straight cable to put as little strain on it as possible.
Even some very expensive headphones these days seem to come with 3.5mm jacks. Perhaps that’s the way the market is heading, I would guess because of the prevalence of portable players that the vast majority will be using.
The Focal Elegia came with a 3.5 cable plus adapter for 6.3
Many headphone amps and DACs are desktop these days and I guess takes up less room. Saying that my RME DAC takes both, but the 3.5 is low gain specifically for iems and the 6.3 for normal headphones.
3.5mm jacks on headphones converted to 6.25 aren’t a problem. But the other way round can result in quite a strain on the 3.5mm socket, and/or the adaptor…
I think of the larger size being applicable to home system use, and 3.5mm for mobile use - the trouble comes if you want [the same] headphones For both: in which case 3.5mm on tge ‘phones would seem appropriate.
Yeah I think this is it.
This is actually my main concern with the 3.5 mm jack on the Star. My Sennheisers has a connector from 6.3 to 3.5 mm but I am constantly worried about strain on it. Kinda got it so the cable leans on the cabinet edge where the Star is standing to take any undue downward pull away.
FYI, it seems all the upper-range Focal headphones have the larger jack - but pairing a ~£3500 pair of headphones with a Star (with great respect to the design of a Star) doesn’t sit well in terms of financial balance.
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