View Full Version : Headphones don't work


Doug Swift
May 14th, 2013, 02:04 PM
I sometimes borrow a friend's Sony HDR FX1000, and I've been re familiarizing myself with it for a project. I just bought an Audio Technica 899 lav mic for my project, I shot some test footage and everything is going great. EXCEPT I'm not getting anything through the headphones. The meters are reading, on both the camera and the Juiced Link mixer (the camera doesn't have XLR ports). These are nice Sony headphones, and I also tried a set of my son's ear buds, and didn't get anything through them, either. If the camera's receiving the sound, and there's nothing wrong with the head gear, what can it be? Any ideas? I'd be grateful.

Don Bloom
May 14th, 2013, 03:32 PM
The headphone plug on the Sony cameras for some reason are a "delicate" plug. I had to replace them on my PD150 & PD170. They seemed to "short" out. Sometimes I could hear thru my cans, sometimes one side sometimes not at all. It became a real PITA. Sorry but typically it either works or not and since you tried different phones/buds and it still not working, it sounds like it needs to be replaced.

Allan Black
May 14th, 2013, 04:33 PM
Welcome Doug, this might work for you it has before. Put a tiny spot of Brasso on a clean rag, wipe it around the end of the headphone brass jack plug
and push the plug in the cam socket and twist it around a few times. Pull it out, wipe it clean and push it back in and twist again.

There are many different quality grades of brass, Swiss watches use a high grade but h/phones and cameras use a cheaper grade and brass corrodes
in the atmosphere. H/phone brass jack plugs should be cleaned like this, at least once a year.

Cheers.

Adam Gold
May 16th, 2013, 10:41 PM
Is the cam's internal speaker working? If not, you do have the playback volume turned up on the control panel under the LCD screen, right? (P.124)

Sherman Bahr
June 4th, 2013, 09:41 PM
I agree with Adam, Have you checked the internal speaker. Does the internal speaker turn off when you plug in the headphones? You will need to be in playback mode with a tape playing with sound on it.

Doug Swift
June 9th, 2013, 03:57 PM
Thanks, everyone. Sorry for the tardy reply. It was indeed a minor issue. The guy I'm borrowing the camera from had indeed turned down the playback volume. I stumbled into the answer by resetting the camera to factory settings. Thanks again for your feedback!