Nintendo headphones

July 18, 2005 12:32 PM

I bought Electoplankton for Nintendo DS from Japan, and it came with some free Nintendo headphones. They have a component on them near the plug, which the lead enters and exists from. It has hinges and looks like it should open, but it doesn't. I can't work out what it's for. Any ideas?
posted by Pretty_Generic to Technology (6 answers total)

Does it look anything like this? If it is, it reduces electrical interference from other equipment. I've seen it on computer equipment cables, but I couldn't tell you much more about them.
posted by schnee at 12:44 PM on July 18, 2005

Best answer: Ferrite beads. They can act as a simple lowpass RL filters on the audio line, passing the audio content but blocking RF.
posted by rajbot at 12:54 PM on July 18, 2005

Response by poster: That's the one, thanks.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 12:57 PM on July 18, 2005

What's the game like? So far that looks like the only title that's worth getting a DS for, at least to me.
posted by krisjohn at 4:06 PM on July 18, 2005

Response by poster: It is a game without a challenge, except perhaps one you set yourself (to produce good audio/video). It's very beautiful, but frankly it should have more depth than it does.

Now, Daigasso! Band Brothers - that's a reason to own a DS.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:22 AM on July 19, 2005

Just for the record, this question was asked before a few months ago. The search keeps timing out on me so I can't find the exact thread but it may be worth looking for if you want to know any more.

I was happy when I saw the previous answers ... the existence of these things always made me curious.
posted by bruceyeah at 4:27 AM on July 19, 2005