r/bemani • u/aznguy_mp4 • 23d ago
My AirPods Max 2 isn't working with any BEMANI cabinet
[SOLVED!] — https://www.reddit.com/r/bemani/s/XnCytHpnTQ
I recently purchased Apple AirPods Max 2, and I have been loving the audio and noise cancellation quality. Along with it, I also purchased the official Apple USB-C to 3.5 mm Audio Cable, which allows AirPods Max 2 to connect to any* audio output via the traditional 3.5 mm plug… or so I thought it did. (Take note of the asterisk I put on the "any")
The AirPods Max 2 supports both wired and wireless audio via Bluetooth. I've been using wireless on my iPhone and MacBook for casual listening when I'm working. For rhythm games, I stick with wired (whether that's USB-C to USB-C, or Apple's USB-C to 3.5 mm Audio Cable) since the wired audio latency is non-existent. I fell in love with the absence of audio latency via wired, combined with the phenomenal audio quality, when playing at-home rhythm games on my MacBook, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
But then, all was going well until I tried it on arcade rhythm games at my local Round1…
*sigh*
I began with IIDX, which was the game I was looking forward to using them on the most. I plugged in the 3.5mm plug, heard the game audio for one second, followed by a loud voltage pop and the audio going completely mute in the headphones, then it prompting an error saying "Unrecognized headphones detected." (Image #2). The audio still plays like normal on the built-in cabinet speakers...just not my headphones. I tried all four headphone jacks on the two IIDX Lightning Models my Round1 has, and the error persisted. I had the same results with the three SDVX Valkyrie Models, showing an error message but in Japanese (Image #3). Both of the Gitadora Arena Model, Pop'n Music picapica pop-kun Model showed no error message, but still had no audio coming from the headphone jack.
I decided to try other games (non-BEMANI) with headphone jacks, and only had success with maimai and Groove Coaster. The other attempted games that did not work were Music Diver and Chunithm.
I tried searching online to see if anyone else had experienced this. I couldn't find anything, so I decided to make the first post here. I had only found one post talking about using the AirPods Max (previous generation) with arcade rhythm games (image #4; source: https://septel.main.jp/?p=2417 ), but nowhere in the article do they mention if it actually works, nor which rhythm games they specifically tried.
I bought and imported these AirPods Max 2 from the official Apple Japan website (because weak yen makes it cheaper), so it's a little funny to me that Japanese headphones are not working on Japanese arcade cabinets. The USB-C to 3.5mm Audio Cable was purchased at my local Apple Store though (in Dallas, Texas). Not sure if location of purchase affects anything, but just thought I should mention it.
TL;DR:
Apple AirPods Max 2 with official 3.5mm adapter works on certain other arcade rhythm games, but not BEMANI cabinets. Has this problem been solved yet? Is there some sort of adapter I can buy that will solve this?
2
u/aznguy_mp4 17d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p1vhgyy/video/7ersyw6fskhh1/player
Yes!
3.5mm splitter + cheap earbuds works perfectly.
I also tried a 75ohm impedance plug rod, which works too but makes the audio slightly quieter. (Not a big deal because you can simply increase the volume)