Hi everyone,
I recently purchased Fairbuds XL headphones and a Roland FP-30X piano. I’m really enjoying the headphones so far. One of the main reasons I bought them was to connect them to my piano. The Roland FP-30X has two types of audio output jacks: a stereo miniature phone type and a stereo 1/4-inch phone type.
To connect my headphones to the piano, I bought this cable. However, I’m encountering an issue: while the piano recognizes that the headphones are connected, there is no sound coming through them. I’m looking for a solution to fix this problem.
I noticed that Fairphone offers a cable specifically for this purpose, but I would prefer to buy one locally rather than shipping a cable from the Netherlands to Czechia.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Welcome to the Community forum. 
I cannot provide a full explanation yet, but perhaps others here can interpret this better:
Your cable’s jack plug has two (black) rings while the Fairphone cable’s jack plug has three. From what I remember, the third ring allows transmitting signals also in the opposite direction. I am not sure if this is actually relevant for your problem, but it is an obvious difference in functionality.
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Sadly that is incorrect. The extra ring means the plug can carry a microphone signal as well. It has nothing to do with directionality.
The world of USB to Audio Jack cables is weird and inconsistent. The linked product above does not clearly state, wether the cable is meant to be used to transmit digital to analouge, analouge to digital, or analouge to analouge signal. It says AUX cable, so I assume you are meant to plug it into your phone’s USB port, and plug the jack cable into a recieving end (aux port). But does the cable have an active DAC built into it, or does it expect your phone to put out analouge signals through it’s USB port? This is a whole can of worms.
The cable sold on Fairphone’s website is a dumb cable, meant to be plugged into a headphone port, and forward the analouge signal into the headphones’ USB input. You dont HAVE to buy the specific cable sold by Fairphone on their website, but may god help you figure out if an online listing has the specific type of usb to jack cable you are looking for.
But just to make sure I didn’t get this wrong, could you please plug your cable into a phone, and plug the jack into some recieving end? If I’m correct, your phone should recognise it as an audio output device. (but not guaranteed, because not all phones output audio the same way)
Or test if any other device with a headphone output could push sound into your Fairbuds. Maybe your piano is faulty after all?
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I’ve tested the cable (multiple ones, in fact) and it is as you said: the cabels work in the opposite direction, the USB-C being plugged into the audio source. Therefore, I don’t think the problem is caused by a faulty piano (but I don’t have a way of testing it because I don’t have headphones with a jack connector).
It seems like I have no way of finding a cabel that works in the correct direction, at least from the e-shops I’ve visited. So, I’ll have to order the fairphone one.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly (because the Fairphone store page isn’t very descriptive about the cabel either): the Fairbuds XL Headphones USB-C - mini jack 3.5mm Cable is designed so that the jack is plugged in the audio source device and the USB-C connector in the headphones, right? Therefore, it should work with my piano.
Yes exactly!
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Okay, thank you for you help!
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