So my wife and I are getting ready for a long flight next month and I want to use the ipad for us to watch some movies. I bought some motorola bluetooth headphones and paired them without an issue to the ipad.

I then plugged in some standard headphones (because we will both need a pair) and the ipad switched off the bluetooth headphones and only put audio through the standard headphones.

Couple of questions (if anyone knows):
1) Is there a work-around or way to listen via both standard and bluetooth headphones at the same time?

2) can you use more than one set of bluetooth headphones at a time?

3) If the answer to the above two questions is no, is the only way to have multiple headphones is to use a splitter and the standard headphone jack?

It's best to use a splitter, I don't think there's a way to do what you described in question 1 and 2 unfortunately.

You cannot use bluetooth and the output jack at the same time. The software turns off the output jack when you are using bluetooth.

I've bought an output jack splitter and it works fine, but I have not tried to use 2 bluetooth devices at the same time. My other bluetooth enabled devices only allow one paired headset at a time, so I would expect the iPad to act similarly.

I think you'll be unhappy with using Bluetooth headsets for a long flight because (1) if the charge dies you don't have a headset, (2) airplane noise isn't filtered out, and (3) all it takes is a flight attendant in a bad mood (very likely) to spot your wireless headsets and tell you to put them away for the duration of the flight.

What would work best for you is to get two in-ear (ie, passive noise-canceling) headphones and a headphone splitter/amplifier. Don't trust the volume level with just a Y-splitter. In a room or even a car, yes, the y-adapter with two headphones will pump out enough volume. But with the roar of the plane's engines in the background and dividing the volume between two headsets, it won't be enough.

Look into either a [ame="http://www.amazon.com/T613-bnc-Boostaroo-All-Audio-Applications/dp/B000EIWCFE/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276113445&sr =1-5"]Boostaroo[/ame] that uses batteries or a [ame="http://www.amazon.com/FiiO-E5-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B001P9EQH8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276113274&sr =1-1"]FiiO E5[/ame] that charges with mini-USB. Both those will raise the volume up significantly and give you two jacks for headphones. Keep in mind you can always lower the volume if it's too high, but in a plane the low bass of the engines will suck the decibels right out of your viewing experience and a simple y-adapter is already losing volume by driving two output sources.

Would like to hear back what your experiences were after your trip, also.

Thank you all for your help. I ordered the FiiO E5 and will get my wife a set of NC headphones as well. I'll let you all know how it works out for us. Now if only my apple case will come in before the trip... here's hoping.

Bluetooth devices consume lots of battery juice.. I dont think anything is out there as you described. As others suggested, i think your best bet is a Y-Adapter setup...

I bought a Y adapter, but I just want to mention...if you have the headphones with the inline mic/volume control, a Y adapter (at least the one we got, you might need some sort of special expensive one) DOES NOT work. Wife and I found out the hard way and ended up with one earbud per ear.

Originally Posted by Matth3w

I bought a Y adapter, but I just want to mention...if you have the headphones with the inline mic/volume control, a Y adapter (at least the one we got, you might need some sort of special expensive one) DOES NOT work. Wife and I found out the hard way and ended up with one earbud per ear.

My wife and i use two German Maestro GMP 435 S through a normal Y-adapter. they work great together, no complaints, still have full volume control with each head set unit. . Also check out this page, they clam to have bluetooth modules with multiple jacks.

http://www.marvgolden.com/headsets/adapters.htm

The cheap one that I bought doesn't allow you to use the apple headsets with the volume control. What Y adapter do you use, I'd like to buy one that works...

Originally Posted by Matth3w

The cheap one that I bought doesn't allow you to use the apple headsets with the volume control. What Y adapter do you use, I'd like to buy one that works...

Mathew, the volume control is actually on the y-splitter. I use this one, got it from Fry,s. I havent tried on the pad yet but shouldn't be any different then ipod

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