What am i looking for?

B

bethanyb321

Member
hi my soundcard only has one stereo output currently connected to my monitors, and i would like to purchase and connect a headphone amplifier as well as another pair of monitors, so essentially i need 3 stereo outputs. So thinking i need some kind of box that takes a stereo xlr input and duplicates it. Not absolutely necessary but an off/on switch for the duplicate stereo outs would be helpful as well. What is necessary is that the signal on all the outputs of the box are 100 percent transparent, nothing added or taken from the signal. what am i looking for?
 
andrushkiwt said:
There's someone else who hasn't found what they're looking for either.

I think it was U2.
Click to expand...

That was helpful. At least it related to "music".

Bethany, I would think a good headphone amp might work for you although the XLR input requirement might be a bit tougher, or put you into more 'studio' level hardware/pricing.

Can you do TRS/balanced 1/4" instead or it has to be XLR? That might open the doors a crack and perhaps expand the range of possible solutions. [note: not sure I would stick with a headphone amp in this case, just looking to see what the actual requirements are]

https://www.sweetwater.com/forums/showthread.php?49024-Balanced-Unbalanced-Stereo-what-are-they
 
Pinky said:
That was helpful. At least it related to "music".

Bethany, I would think a good headphone amp might work for you although the XLR input requirement might be a bit tougher, or put you into more 'studio' level hardware/pricing.

Can you do TRS/balanced 1/4" instead or it has to be XLR? That might open the doors a crack and perhaps expand the range of possible solutions. [note: not sure I would stick with a headphone amp in this case, just looking to see what the actual requirements are]

https://www.sweetwater.com/forums/showthread.php?49024-Balanced-Unbalanced-Stereo-what-are-they
Click to expand...

i have my eye on a couple headphone amps, but they dont have outputs to feed my monitors, so it is a delimma since my soundcard only has one stereo output. I just need to duplicate the stereo signal from my soundcard. Is there some kind of box that does this? xlr or trs doesnt matter
 
bethanyb321 said:
i have my eye on a couple headphone amps, but they dont have outputs to feed my monitors, so it is a delimma since my soundcard only has one stereo output. I just need to duplicate the stereo signal from my soundcard. Is there some kind of box that does this? xlr or trs doesnt matter
Click to expand...

I use a headphone amp to power my monitors. It's not ideal but my monitors have a variety of connection types available on the back and the background noise from the cabling is not even noticeable. So you might be fine with using the headphone amp and some patch cables, converting to whatever input your monitors will accept. My need for the headphone amp is to have dedicated control of the signal to send to my subwoofer, and of course I have a few pairs of headphones as well. I'm using this if you're curious:

PreSonus HP4 | Sweetwater.com

In theory you could use the rear monitor/thru output as the send to the studio monitors. I liked having control with the volume knobs on the front so I could dial things in with the sub, but for your needs perhaps that would work?

Fwiuw, this solution is fine for home recording/minimalist setups, but not how you would want to do things with more expensive gear. To do things 'right', however, would cost a lot more than the equipment being connected/exceed the benefit to the connected components. Like I said, it sounds fine so as they say - if it aint broken.
 
Don't want to get pedantic with a noob Beth' but there is no such thing as a "stereo" XLR (tho' of course you could kludge one to take 2 channels) so let us stick with TRS?

The simplest way to get a "transparent" feed to two or more pieces of gear is a simple passive splitter.

"Sigh" It is SO sad and frustrating that people have largely lost/never learned some basic engineering and soldering skill. Making such a 3 way splitter* really is child's play, 4 TRS jack, some wire and a tin. Fitting switches is not very much more difficult.

In the absence of such skills you are looking at headphone amps with 4 outputs but these will not give you absolutely clean repro'. I doubt the good ones will add anything you can REALLY hear but you might not be 100% happy?

Then there are passive Monitor Controllers. These are essentially passive splitters with a VC pot and often a headphone amplifier (that needs power of course!)

*NB It is always ok to SPLIT outputs but not to COMBINE them. This can lead to distortion as one low Z output is loaded by another. In some cases with older gear you can even damage the OP amplifiers. Combiners need build out resistors, usually around 1k per "leg" .

BTW I can do diagrams if you want to have a bash?

Dave.
 
bethanyb321 said:
hi my soundcard only has one stereo output currently connected to my monitors, and i would like to purchase and connect a headphone amplifier as well as another pair of monitors, so essentially i need 3 stereo outputs. So thinking i need some kind of box that takes a stereo xlr input and duplicates it. Not absolutely necessary but an off/on switch for the duplicate stereo outs would be helpful as well. What is necessary is that the signal on all the outputs of the box are 100 percent transparent, nothing added or taken from the signal. what am i looking for?
Click to expand...

Mackie Big Knob would do what you need. And then some.
 
ecc83 said:
Don't want to get pedantic with a noob Beth' but there is no such thing as a "stereo" XLR (tho' of course you could kludge one to take 2 channels) so let us stick with TRS?

The simplest way to get a "transparent" feed to two or more pieces of gear is a simple passive splitter.

"Sigh" It is SO sad and frustrating that people have largely lost/never learned some basic engineering and soldering skill. Making such a 3 way splitter* really is child's play, 4 TRS jack, some wire and a tin. Fitting switches is not very much more difficult.

In the absence of such skills you are looking at headphone amps with 4 outputs but these will not give you absolutely clean repro'. I doubt the good ones will add anything you can REALLY hear but you might not be 100% happy?

Then there are passive Monitor Controllers. These are essentially passive splitters with a VC pot and often a headphone amplifier (that needs power of course!)

*NB It is always ok to SPLIT outputs but not to COMBINE them. This can lead to distortion as one low Z output is loaded by another. In some cases with older gear you can even damage the OP amplifiers. Combiners need build out resistors, usually around 1k per "leg" .

BTW I can do diagrams if you want to have a bash?

Dave.
Click to expand...



thanks a splitter box should be good. shouldnt one also need a ground/lift switch to eliminate any possible hum? as my equipment is usually prone to that
 
mjbphotos said:
Never heard of one that didn't have a headphone output jack as well as stereo line outs.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Presonus I linked to has line outs (she indicated she may want to add more monitors (?) later, so I'm not sure if simply splitting the signal from the output on the back of the Presonus would work).

Jimmy, that Mackie is a beast. And a bit of coin. But would provide multiple TRS outputs from the same input signal.

ECC, I hear you about a passive splitter. Great point/idea. I figured those would be hard to find. [I'm knowledgeable enough to build stuff but rarely do... partly out of laziness, partly convenience of usually finding something else that works... like you did ;)]
 
Besides all the more robust solutions...at the most simplest level, you could just use a typical patchbay , and mult several of the points with the soundcard output so that you can feed several devices....which is in effect no different than a passive splitter box.

Besides a variety of I/O connection options with my gear, I also have several mult groups on my patchbays, that way I can quikcly/easily take any signal and instantly get additional splits from it.. One of the easiest/best things to add to a patchbay...and doesn't require additional splitter boxes in the rack or on the floor...etc
 
Bethany... a while back you had a post about using your integrated PC soundcard because your interface quit (I think I read this correctly). Is this still the case or did you get a new interface? If new interface, what is it?
 
+1. What is your sound card?
Pretty much any audio interface worth having will have main outs and headphone output which gets you half way there.
The majority of bigger ones will have more than just two line outs so, OK, switching might not be as simple as you want but a good interface might cover your needs.
 
The Behringer HPA4700 has the things you need. Inputs and outputs are either XLR or TRS. You can go from soundcard to HPA4700 with stereo RCA to TRS (or XLR), then to monitors vith TRS or XLR. It has a variety of controls for four head channels, but each channel has an additional two headphone outputs at the back, so you could feed 12 sets of headphones.

HA4700.jpg
 
>>>THIS<<< was suggested at the "other" forum and the OP appears to be leaning in this direction.

You guys can laugh, but I use the device below for switching the unbalanced stereo line outs of my PC to powered computer monitors, as well as other devices. Cheap and it does what I need adequately :)
 

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HA 4700 is cheap and loud, but my experience with it was that it was very noisy and 'thin' sounding. I upgraded to a Samson S-Phone that just sounded much clearer. It died on me not 30 minutes ago. Is that irony?

New Presonus HP60 on way from Sweetwater now. :)
 
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