headphone amps

  • Thread starter Thread starter MadHatterTCM
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Roguetitan said:
I use the $19.95 model... works great!
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I second getting one of these. 4 channels, plenty of gain, and suprisingly very low noise.
 
yaknski said:
Slowrider, don't bother helping these pricks. What he's looking for doesn't exist 'cause it has to go in a fucking rack.
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still upset? :rolleyes:

I don't think i've said anything even in the slightest of rude towards you?
All I asked if there was a rack version of something.
Hah, you act now as if the idea of it is absurd.

ooooook.

I'm glad no one is taking things personal here..
 
Was the Allen Heath a Mix Wiz? The one I looked at looks like it has 16 channels with 12 outs (or 6 stereo).
 
ah yeah you're right.. well the second time.. at first you mentioned one with only 4stereo outs

but yeah it's the 12m/6s I was looking at

http://www.allen-heath.com/US/wz312m.asp

Either way... probably too ginormous of a piece and price to really utilize.
 
Hey, was in a studio tonight and saw and used this:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Furman-HDS6HR6-Headphone-Distribution-Amp-System?sku=241501

Furman HDS-6 4 mono channels and a L+R stereo channel. Cat5 wires connect up to six mixers that each have 2 (tied together) headphone jacks. Still more money than the Mackie, but certainly less than the Hearback. And while it's a head and mixers, it's all smaller than the Hearback.

This is all in case you haven't put the Mackie on a rack shelf.
 
I use that same Fuhrman system in my studio. I like the way it works a lot, it serves my purpose pretty well. I am not sure how well it would work for live use though. First, it requires two cat 5 cables to go into each box. Second, you have two either add a hub, or you have to daisy chain the boxes. If you daisy chain the boxes you have to have two cables going in to each, and two cables coming out from each (except the last box). This isn't necessarily too bad, but the cables tend te seat pretty loosely. If you move them around, or some times even bump them or the cables just right they unseat themselves a little. When this happens some of the channels go out until you firmly seat the cable again. I guess it could be just mine, but all four boxes do it even with different cable brands. Functionally though it offers good features and sounds pretty decent. Sonically it is definately a step up from things like the Behringer powerplay's (which I also have).
 
xstatic said:
This isn't necessarily too bad, but the cables tend te seat pretty loosely. If you move them around, or some times even bump them or the cables just right they unseat themselves a little. When this happens some of the channels go out until you firmly seat the cable again. I guess it could be just mine, but all four boxes do it even with different cable brands. Functionally though it offers good features and sounds pretty decent. Sonically it is definately a step up from things like the Behringer powerplay's (which I also have).
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I imagine you've tried prying up the retaining tabs on the Cat5 cable ends? In the studio I've been working in that has them, we've been moving them all over the place with no troubles. They've also zip-tied the pairs of Cat5 cables together to keep them more manageable.
 
thanks whale bone. Although I'd prefer minimizing set up time by having it all in one unit and not a rackmount + little stations, it may work out.. we'll see. May just get too messy though.
 
Glad this thread came back to life. Somehow I missed it. And sometime soon I'd like to get an easy and cheap mix solution at the stage for live stuff. And that mackie might be just what I need.

Edit: Interesting. Front End Audio has it listed as unavailable. The availability date is two months old. Musiciansfriend has it as discontinued. And there seems to be a lot of 'backorder' talk from people finding them listed anywhere. I hope this stays in production, great price for exactly the kind of thing I would need.
 
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Whale, I have tried to pry the tabs to get a little better retention out of them. The problem is not a thing that happens all the time, but it does happen. It's just frustrating for musicians when they aren't aware of that and they think they have done something wrong. Inevitably they screw with things for a minute like wiggling the headphone cable and checking the headphone connectors. That doesn't solve it so then they say something and I have to run into the tracking room and just oush in the cables really quickly. It only takes two seconds to do, but it also makes a very loud metallic clicking noise in the headphones when I do that. Zip tying the cables is certainly a good solution to reduce some of the mess, but I always try and not do that because I coild cables so fast. When cables have zip ties on them I always end up slicing my hands on them when I am coiling. I know it seems silly, but after coiling more than 100,000 cables you get pretty quick and things like little zip ties can be pretty lethal:D Gaff tape also works, but can get a little messy if try and seperate the cables later.

Even with the little issues I would not necessarily reccomend not using the Fuhrman system, but just trying to point out the things I have noticed about it. Other than those minor things, i love the flexibility, and like I said before, it sounds much better than the other typical cheap offerings that a lot of people use (including myself on occasion).
 
xstatic, goog point about the zip ties. I looked at them again last night and noticed they were actually little twist ties, like for a bread bag. Pain to put on, but easier on the hands if you dress them well.
 
So, for those curious. Here's what my final solution ended up being.
I bought a rackmount headphone amp. A typical one that has an aux input on each channel. The important thing wasn't how many outputs I could get, but how many inputs I could get.

I also bought a 16 (8 stereo) channel line mixer with 2 pre-faders. I sent the 2 aux channels from the line mixer to the 1st two channels on the headphone amp, and the main output on the 3rd input of the headphone amp. I now have 8 channels that i can mix out to 3 different headphone outputs.

haha, this almost seems so dumb as to why i didn't think about this before?
 
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