eli5: Why do most airlines still use 2-pin audio jacks for the in-flight entertainment systems on their planes?
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I’d disagree that most airline flights still have 2-pin audio jacks, as most aircraft have seats that have been upgraded to 1-pin stereo audio jacks. The 2-pin audio jacks were an upgrade from the two-hole jacks passengers attached sound tube headphones into.
https://apex.aero/articles/sound-tube-surprising-history-airline-headsets/
Just try to modernize some electronics in an airplane, and you will learn how much pain certification and bureaucracy can cause.
They used to have “air tubes”. You plugged in a two pin plug that was just a hollow tube. No electronics. This would connect to bigger tubes below the seat. The sound would be sent through the tube. They actually had a few different channels. The sound was OK but the best part was all of the second hand smoke. The 70’s were fun.
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Corporations tend to act on a “ain’t broke, don’t fix” or ABDF policy, meaning if you don’t need to replace it, then don’t. This was not thought up by engineers, but by the accountants. When you take an airplane out of service to change something that isn’t mission critical, in this case something that doesn’t help a plane full of live humans take off, fly, and land with everyone safe and intact, then it’s unjustifiably expensive, much cheaper to use those mass produced yet proprietary headphones. Besides, people tend to have their phones, tablets, and computers with them on flights and their own headphones, so it wouldn’t make much sense to change the in-flight entertainment system, you can do that when you retire those old planes and buy new ones.
Another answer is that airlines will rent you the earphones to use with the two-pin jacks. They make money by NOT letting you use your headphones.
(I don’t see the two-pin jacks much any more — last time I travelled with an entertainment system, there was a traditional 3.5mm jack. )
Two main reasons. Firstly because it discourages the theft of headphones, and secondly because the second jack often carries a noise cancellation signal.
It was to have a proprietary jack for the headphones so people would not steal them as they would not work on any other device. Same reason why they still sell those adapters so you can plug your own headphones instead of the ones provided by the flight company.
I see dual jacks only rarely – but I carry a 2-to-1 adapter, just in case. These days if the seat has dual jacks there are almost always fairly good free headsets; my carryon has a collection of them. Still, I prefer my over-the-ear Senn PX550 noise cancelling headphones – I wear them even when all I want is quiet. They are BT to my phone and laptop, but wired to the IFE. Looking forward to using them completely wireless. Every 20th flight I leave the *]{}}#%^* cable plugged in. Cables are cheap and Amazon can sometime deliver to my destination hotel before I get there.
because every operating part on a plane my be new / rebuilt within the last 2 years…but the passenger ops section could be 20 years old with little more then some chair back and pad and arm rest replacements .
You get on those plans without the screens in each row , you know you got on an oldie
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