DIY headphone/monitor router

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fat hobbit
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Fat hobbit

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Hi. I own a 1212m and a problem I have with it is that there is only 1 stereo pair of analog outs. This creates a problem as I want to use both monitors and headphones. So I was wondering if anyone could give me any advice as I want to build a simple stomp box type thing to change between headphone and monitors.

Now if I just wanted to choose either headphones or monitors, I suppose I could use a simple DPDT switch with the headphone throws going to a simple headphone amp like this:
http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/

Now what if I wanted to have the option to turn each off individually and so be able to have both at the same time. Would I have to use some kind of buffer circuit to drive both so as not to have impedance problems, or could the 1212m drive both as it is if I have the headphones going through the cmoy pocket amp?

Thanks very much for any help.
 
a cheap way is to find a relation who has no need anymore for a cassette deck. output the soundcard to cassette deck. plug headphones into the cassette deck, and take stereo out from cassette deck to wline in of whatever amplifier drives your main studio speakers. radio shack has a box that lets you sel;ect different speakers. this would let you shut off your speakers if you just wanted headphone monitoring.
another way is to get an old tascam line mixer and take soundcard output to it and plug phones into it then foldback out of line mixer to your main monitoring.
hth
 
Thanks very much for all your help everyone, keep it coming. To be honest I'm a bit loath to spend much on this as if I do I might as well have bought the 1820M in the first place...

However, I'm thinking of building a decent headphone amp anyway (it's what home recording's all about isn't it?), so could anyone help me with my original question as to whether I could drive both headphones (through cmoy amp) and monitors from 1212m simultaneously?

Thanks a lot again everyone.
 
With the 1820M it looks like you have 8 balanced outputs, which could be used to provide up to 4 stereo outputs. If the control software allows it, you should be able to setup each output to go wherever you want. My original post was me thinking you had a 1212M (should learn how to read one of these days).

As far as building a headphone amp goes, my experience (wanting to do the DIY studio thing) is that the cost of components is almost as much by itself as just buying something like a Behringer unit, which lots of people seem to be happy with. The particular unit I built, based on plans I found on the Paia website, is OK for basic headphone listening but it doesn't cut it for recording, in my opinion. There is an extreme roll-off of bass frequencies which make it inadequate for recording bass. Everything else about it is fine, but the bass response finally caused the unit to go into the dust pile. I got better results using the bus outs on my main mixer, so that is where I stand for now.

Good luck,
Darryl.....
 
Now that I posted my last reply I went back and re-read your original post. You said you had a 1212M in the first post. The 1212M only has a stereo output so you have to have something to split the signal and provide separate control for each, which goes back to my original suggestion. Those little Behringer mixers are perfect for doing this since they have a main output, a control room output, and a headphone output that are all individually controllable. Nice, easy, cheap. I've seen lots of pro studios that actually use these for personal mixers for headphones (it would be very simple to daisy-chain several together with only minor signal degradation if setup properly).

You could use a dedicated headphone distribution unit to do the same thing, but to get any level of quality you will have to go several times higher in cost.

Darryl.....
 
If you really are interested in building your own buffer/headphone amp, you can with a couple Op-Amp IC chips, resistors, pots, and a breadboard. I had to make one in a class back in college, it was pretty easy and it worked. It's cheap if you can find the stuff locally, 50 cents in components gets expensive when you have to pay shipping. Try finding a radio supply shop in your area, they should be able to get you the parts and sketch out a circuit for you. Otherwise type in "Inverting Amplifier opamp" in google and you should be able to find yourself some schematics.
As DDev said though, unless you are building one for fun, it's probably easier if you just buy one, it's already made, packaged in a durable case with real knobs, jacks, etc.
 
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