Griffin Headphone Adapter & SmartShare Splitter [Review]

Griffin Headphone Adapter Box

Griffin recently sent me an iPhone headphone adapter and SmartShare headphone splitter for review.

As you may know, the iPhone’s headphone jack is recessed, so headphones other than those over-priced white Apple earbuds don’t reach into the port — yes, Apple is proprietary like that. That’s where the Griffin headphone adapter comes in.

It fits into the iPhone’s headphone jack so you can listen to music with your preferred non-Apple headphones.

The Griffin SmartShare headphone splitter does the same while splitting the headphone jack in two so you can plug in an additional headphone pair and listen to music along with a friend.

Continue reading for my full review of the Griffin headphone adapter and SmartShare headphone splitter.

Griffin Headphone Adapter & SmartShare Headphone Splitter

Griffin Headphone Adapter for iPhone

My first impression was that the Griffin headphone products sport a sleek, attractive design compared to other headphone adapters I’ve seen, which are either more generic-looking or just plain ugly.

For me, the Griffin headphone adapter has been most useful for plugging the iPhone into my home speakers. Before I had the adapter I’d normally hook up my laptop to the speakers, but it’s much more convenient to use the iPhone.

Griffin iPhone Headphone Adapter on Speakers

As you can see above, the adapter is very flexible, which is important because who wants a rigid antennae-like appendage (like the Belkin headphone adapter) attached to their iPhone?

I’ve also enjoyed using this adapter to listen to my iPhone with some Sony earbuds I own.

Your typical 1/8″ headphone plug clicks into the headphone adapter effortlessly, without you having to apply any force. It is a good fit and not loose at all, so you don’t have to worry about it detaching while in your pocket.

The Griffin iPhone adapter is so flexible that I’m able to stuff it into my jeans’ coin pocket along with my headphones with no problem.

Griffin SmartShare Headphone Splitter review

Griffin SmartShare Headphone Adapter

The SmartShare headphone splitter is also a headphone adapter, only it divides iPhone’s headphone port in two.

Each connector has a volume control, which you can slide up and down easily.

When you’ve got two headphone pairs attached, the maximum volume level on each one decreases slightly. This is expected, as the power is being split in two, but surprisingly the volume decrease is not too significant.

Overall, I’m pleased with both the Griffin headphone adapter and the SmartShare headphone splitter. Although my package came bundled with both items, the headphone adapter can be purchased separately for $10. But for $5 more, Griffin will throw in the SmartShare headphone splitter, so that might be the better buy, depending on your needs.

Click to see Griffin’s headphone adapter on Amazon.


3 thoughts on “Griffin Headphone Adapter & SmartShare Splitter [Review]”

  1. I bought the Griffin car charger/fm tuner for the iPhone. Yesterday we drove to Washington DC and the item was a terrible disappointment and I will be returning it. It doesn’t work well at all–it couldn’t find good stations to work on, gave incorrect information about which stations would work and was very static-y and played music at a very low volume.

    Reply
  2. Bose make quality in-ear headphones which are compatible with iPhone. I would recommend them to anyone, however they are £70 (around $100 in US i think)

    Reply

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