Connecting monitors and headphones to soundcard

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Slotheroo

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So I'm ditching my M-Audio DX4s (monitors) because the right one seems to have little to no treble left in it. After a couple hours of wading through contradictory studio monitor reviews, I'm leaning toward buying a couple of Mackie MR5s. While the Mackies will probably be a step up for me, I'm sure to lose my volume adjustment knob and headphone jack that have served me well up to this point. Oh, and FYI my soundcard is an M-Audio Audiophile 2496, so we're looking at one output for the left and one for the right.

Here's what I'd like to have in my setup:
1. A knob to control volume to my monitors so I don't have to use the soft faders
2. More importantly, I want a headphone jack that will give me a comparable quality of signal as what is being sent to my monitors

That said, I'd like to avoid routing through a mixer between my soundcard and monitors.

Something like the SM Pro Audio M-Patch 2 seems like a good option, but I've heard that there is considerable noise from the headphone jack.

I'm willing to swap out my soundcard if that option makes sense.

Any good ideas?
 
"Y" out the signal to a headphone amp? To get a volume control for the monitors, I think it would be best to pass the signal through the mixer. you can get the headphone amp too that way.



WOHOO!!! 100 posts
 
Hmm, I suppose I will need a mixer of sorts. I was hoping to have my mixer set up so that the output was sent to the input on my soundcard. But if I've got the outputs from my soundcard running to the mixer and the outputs of my mixer running to my soundcard, that's quite the feedback loop, yeah? So I'm thinking this means I need a second mixer just to control volume to my monitors in a tactile way and to get a powered headphone jack. How cheap could I go in the mixer department here without investing in anything Behringer? It seems clumsy to need two mixers.
 
Mmm, I just read through the manual for my mixer (a Yamaha MG 102C) and it seems like there are probably 4 different ways I can set up just using the one mixer for outputting to both my monitors and my soundcard. Yum, reading.

In case anyone is curious, I'm thinking...
For recording: source > mixer inputs > stereo out (on mixer) > soundcard ins
For listening: soundcard outs > 2TR in (mixer) > monitor/phone outs

Then I just have to make sure I never send the 2TR in to the stereo mix.

This is probably pretty trivial for most of you, but news to me!
 
Sorry...double post:o
 
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Mmm, that does look like a good option, Whale Bone. I'll probably try to set up with my mixer first and if I'm unhappy with that, I'll check out the HP4.

The article on using a mixer with a DAW doesn't seem to apply to my setup since I don't have nearly that many ins on my soundcard and I don't have an insert out for each channel of my mixer (pretty sure I don't, anyway). Thanks for digging it up all the same solo2racr.
 
I checked out the Yamaha mixer you have before I post the link. It should have inserts on channels 1 & 2. The card you have has 2 inputs. There you go. You just use the send part of the insert to get the signal to the card and any other 2 channels to get the signal back to the mixer. When I get home(at my GF house now), there is another site I'll post a link to that may explain it better for you. Unless you intend to mix outside the box, it should work just fine.
 
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