Monitor Mixes and Headphone Amps

T

TheLoo

New member
Hi everybody!

This is my first post to this group, so I hope it isn't too terribly stupid. :)

I have a Behringer DDX3216 digital mixer in a home studio in my basement. There are four +4 nominal dBu 1/4" TRS balanced multi outs on it. I'd like to use these to send out 4 separate headphone mixes while tracking. There is a behringer headphone amp that lets you have a separate input for each channel, but it expects Stereo TRS 1/4" input. So, as I understand balanced cables there is an in-phase and out-of-phase signal on the tip and ring... if I ran that TRS cable into the headphone input that expects left and right on tip and ring what would happen? Would I essentially end up with a mono signal? Would the phase thing be a problem? Or is the "correct" choice to buy 4 headphone amps instead of one?

Thanks to all in advance,
Forrest
 
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Can the headphone amp take a mono input, or are you stuck with stereo? If it can, then you could probably get away with just using an unbalanced cable from the multi-outs to the inputs on the headphone amp.
 
Hey tourettes,

Thanks for the uber-quick reply. I'm right now just investigating the possibility of this idea, so I don't actually own the Behringer headphone amp yet. The one I'm looking at is the Behringer Powerplay Pro-8 HA-8000. I don't see anything on it about being able to accept mono inputs on each separate channel, but I'll investigate that further. If it can't what are my options? Would I need separate headphone amps each with balanced inputs then? What do other people do in their studios? I'm sure I'm not the only one wanting to have multiple monitor mixes while recording.

Thanks again for all the help,
Forrest
 
I use four Presonus HP4's for monitor mixes in my studio. They only take one stereo in though, so I have to use seperate headphone amps. I also place them right next the musician so that they have quick access to their levels.
 
The multi-outs on my mixer (which are effectively my aux sends) are mono (1/4" balanced +4 dBu). So, earthbound, how do you run 4 separate stereo monitor mixes? Do you have a mixer with stereo aux sends? Or are you using something other than the auxes for your monitor mixes?

Thanks for the info,
Forrest
 
This is what I understand.

1 the digital mixer gives you four balanced 1/4" outputs.

2 the headphone amp accepts stereo 1/4" TRS inputs.

If you use a standard, unbalanced mono cable, the headphone amp will work, but the signal will be on one side only. This may or may not be suitable.

If you want a mono headphone signal that appears in both sides, the easiest way is to use a cable with mono one end, and TRS on the other. The mono end goes to desk, the TRS goes to the headphone amp channel insert.
 
that headphone amp has a mono switch on the front panel for each channel. that is your fix there. also, being not to far away from a complete novice myself, almost every retailer has a .pdf link to the manufacturer's manual. reading those thoroughly before buying equipment has always proved beneficial for me.
 
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