Originally posted by Faeflora:
[QB]
What's a headphone amp for?
QB]

Is this a trick question??

OK I'll bite ... to drive headphones.

Some people find the headphone drive the comes from some equipment to be less than adequate. Perhaps the HP's are low impedance or they have many HP's to drive or they just like it loud!

Perhaps they just want quality .... and quality costs ... check out the Grace901.

No, it's not a joke. As I said, I'm ignormarant.

I guess that some people's ears are pretty fucking deaf compared to mine. I've never had to totally crank the output of a piece of gear to get the headphone level I needed. Max volume always HURTS me.

I don't think it's worth it to me to spend $3000 on an amp just for headphones. Behringer just put out a 4 channel one for $150 list. Yah baby!

The only thing that may be stupid about a question is not to ask it! :roll:

A headphone amp will come in handy when you have a variety of heaphones that have different impedences and handling characteristics (loudness).

The headphone amp will allow each user to have the volume they need or enjoy without affecting the others involved. :eek:

For a mobile ISDN rig I use with remote radio broadcasts, I have a Rane HC 6 which has served me well for basic listening. :tu:

I haven't seen the Behringer model, but it's worth investigating for the budget-conscious.

:w:

The headphone amp is useful both in the performance room, as said, so that different players using different headphones acan set different volumes. But there is also the use in the control room - some people buy very expensive electrostatic headphones to use for mixing. If you are going to spend $1000+ on headphones, it makes sense to drive them with a high quality headphone amp. Otherwise, it's kind of like plugging a Stephen Paul modified Neumann into an ART preamp - you can do it, but why would you want to? Especially if you are using a typical project studio mixer ($1000-$5000), you gotta figure they spent all of, what, $4.99 on the headphone preamp?

On the subject of inexpensive headphone amps, Rolls and Fostex also make very useable and cheap models.

Another reason for a separate headphone amp is that most of the cooler ones allow you to adjust different mixes for different players - this way you can give each player "more of me" without causing everybody elses ears to trade places. Plus, if you mount a rackmount amp somewhere out of the way, you don't have even more cords laying over controls you really wish you could get to... Steve

Most are focused on the multi user Headphone Amps...

You say "Max volume always HURTS me." I'm not suprised Max volume often will take a piece of equipment into clipping.

All that aside , even when not clipping there are many things that can go wrong with a typical Headphone amp. I was astonished the first time I saw Headphones hanging off the terminals of a speaker amp. Don't try this until you have done a little research.

The reason I went this way was to provide clear and dynamic monitoring for Drums and Bass where volume was needed even with enclosed cans and since then I have seen the need for a good HA when mixing.

Don't knock it 'till you have tried it BUT be careful, you will need thses ears for a few years to come.

Ok, thanks girls and guys. So a headphone amp functions as a signal splitter and distributor, booster, and attenuator. Makes sense.

I will be needing to pick one of these up for band sessions. The impedance thing shouldn't be a problem since I only have the Sony MDR-V600s aka 7506s.

That's one very useful type of headphone amp. The Grace 901 is a different one, just a single high quality headphone jack for critical decisionmaking that might be more than you might trust most headphone amps with. Includes digital to analog conversion. Some live recording folks don't always have a good monitoring situation without something like this.

Ted

I've got a Samson 4 ch. S-phone. It's even cheaper than the Behringer, but works great. EQ, Aux, and two extra outputs on every channel.

Chris
Mediocre Records

Just picked up a Furman HDR6 and 4 HR6 remote mixers from StudioTech Supply. This is a "more me" type system which allows a stereo mix and 4 mono sources to be mixed by the performers at each remote. The controller will drive up to 8 remotes. Nice and loud, low noise, versatile and economical. I wanted the HDS16 (2 stereo+8 Mono sources), but couldn't afford it this year.

I use an old stereo...100 watts with the furman satelites for distribution..works great..plenty of ass for the drummers, with..master volume,low and high shelving for the discriminating listeners.