dcoz wrote: Currently the audio line out of my Audiophile 2496 goes directly to my power amp and monitors. I want to add a headphone amp so I have the option of listening to either the headphones or monitors. Is a simple A/B box all I need? (I recall seeing these at radio shack).

Well, the general rule of electronics is that you can split out, but you cannot split in and expect good results. Meaning its acceptable to basically use any kind of splitter you want to connect an output source and seperate it into two output sources (uhhhh... its actually a little more complicated than that and you might run into some issues if your using low impedance devices which I wont even discuss because it would just complicate things and it doesnt apply to what your doing). However, its generally not acceptable to connected two sources and sum it into once source with a simple splitter (i.e. if you wanted to take two microphones each connected to a "Y" cable and then try to record them both or run them into your mixer/recorder.

That being said, you can use either a "Y" cable from radio shack, or an A/B type box, or you can also use a patch bay which is how I usually like to do my splits. I like to set the patch bay up so I get a duplicate split in the front so I can route one signal to wherever, with the other split being available for tapping in witha pair opf headphones should I want to check a signal level. If you use the "Y" cable though, you have to be careful because there are two types of "Y" cables. Theres a "real" Y cable (which is TRS to TRS/TRS for a stereo Y cable, or alternatively TS to TS/TS for mono a mono splitting Y, and then theres an "Insert" cable which people usually call a Y cable but its not really because its TRS to TS/TR. Which one you need depends on your setup and what kind of cables youve got running.

Thanks for the input

I really appreciate your response. You also identified another rookie error in my setup. I've been splitting the output of my mic pre into the L and R input using a 1/4" to 2 RCA y adaptor. This may explain why the signal always seemed a bit weak...