Headphone Amp

[maestro]

Can anyone recommend a good Multi Channel Headphone Amp please? Thanks

[Ward Pike]

Much to my surprise, I've had great success with two relatively "cheap-ass" units from Presonus and Rane.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Ward Pike

Much to my surprise, I've had great success with two relatively "cheap-ass" units from Presonus and Rane.

The RANE is actually a very nice unit.

I assume you are wanting to send the same signal to several people, each with their own volume control?

[Mr. Kelly]

I've had good luck with ART Headamp units. I many use the small 1U 1/2 space one. It has 5x headphone outputs (on the front), each with their own volume control. You can get them used on Ebay quite cheaply.

If you want more elaborate, their Headamp6 unit is a more flexible 1U amp.

[crosscutred]

I have the rane 6 channel amp, It's good, plenty of power and separate amps for each output. You can feed it 6 different mixes and it will send them out clean and loud.

[lpkyer]

I'm thinking about buying some of these chinese "hifi" headphone amps on eBay. Check em out.

[Jimbo]

Aphex Headpod.

Four channels with clean gain for days.

[johnnyc]

Rane HC6, solid and inexpensive

[joel77]

Really hate to admit that I even have it, but damn, it just works well - Behringer HA4500. If it'd die, I'd throw it away and get something else, but it won't! lol

Joel, Studio 52

[pan60]

Originally Posted by John Willett

The RANE is actually a very nice unit.

I assume you are wanting to send the same signal to several people, each with their own volume control?

yep!
RANE dose is always so under estimated.
i have no issues with the presonus, but i do not mix with headphones.
but for track i have no issues at all.
i have a HP-60 and a few hp-4's here

[maestro]

Thanks all. Has anyone used the DACs Headlite?

[imaginaryday]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Aphex Headpod.

Four channels with clean gain for days.

totally!!!

[BrianVengeance]

I've had good luck with the ART HeadAmp 6. Signal does seem to degrade some down the line, but overall it is clean / loud enough for my needs (non critical listening tasks). Good bang for the buck.

[stephent28]

Rane HC-6

[dave gross]

My ATI HDA600 rocks. Tons of clean headroom, 6 channels with 6 inputs as well as a master stereo input. Highly recommended.

[edwinhurwitz]

The Rane HC6 is a great option which can be had for cheap. I had the Behringer foisted upon me for a while it was unreliable and sounded like crap. After moving to the Rane, it was really clear how bad it was.

Of course, this is the high end forum, so why not just get a Grace 902 for each musician? :-)

[SHIRK]

Originally Posted by BrianVengeance

I've had good luck with the ART HeadAmp 6. Signal does seem to degrade some down the line, but overall it is clean / loud enough for my needs (non critical listening tasks). Good bang for the buck.

I have a ART HeadAmp 6 Pro. I bought it to replace the Behringer HA4700 that went south on me a earlier this year (mid 2011). About 6 weeks after I bought the ART unit, one of the LED meters went nuts on me. (All of the LED's on Channel 6 stay lit regardless of whether or not there is signal present). Just last month while A/B-ing a sweet set of Phonon Headphones (SMB-02) a friend brought over for me to check out, it blew the left driver of the headphones. No audio even present... it just decided to freak out while I was plugging them in to channel 5. I was very embarrassed to say the least. The next day I wearily plugged in my trusty Sony 7509's because I had to cut a VO and channel 4 blew the left driver in my Sony's. Same thing as before. No audio present, it just shorted while plugging the Headphones into the jack. I immediately pulled it from the rack. Over $500 in headphone cooked by a $150 headphone amp.

Lesson learned!!!!!!

I'm currently trying to decide if I buy more garbage products like ART and Behringer or just get the RANE (which I used to use quite regularly at another studio). I think in writing this post, I just answered that questions for myself.

Do yourself a favor and avoid the ART HeadAmp 6 Pro. You get what you pay for.

[edwinhurwitz]

Ranes can be had pretty cheap. I think I sold the last one I had for $75 or so.

[Schaap]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Aphex Headpod.

Four channels with clean gain for days.

+1. Very clean

[lane thaw]

+ 4 on the Aphex - yes clean and high gain.

[DrewSchnurr]

Furman

[Kenny Gioia]

I'm actually using one of these:

[IMG]******//vollent.ca/lwms/Samson%20Q5.gif[/IMG]

Gave up on the "everybody gets a different mix" route.

Although, I've been doing more singer/songwriter stuff and less full band stuff.

[Demonslave]

Hearback system. It does both analog and digital, and has a built in limiter in the controller. By far the best I have used for the money....

[BrianVengeance]

Originally Posted by SHIRK

I have a ART HeadAmp 6 Pro. I bought it to replace the Behringer HA4700 that went south on me a earlier this year (mid 2011). About 6 weeks after I bought the ART unit, one of the LED meters went nuts on me. (All of the LED's on Channel 6 stay lit regardless of whether or not there is signal present). Just last month while A/B-ing a sweet set of Phonon Headphones (SMB-02) a friend brought over for me to check out, it blew the left driver of the headphones. No audio even present... it just decided to freak out while I was plugging them in to channel 5. I was very embarrassed to say the least. The next day I wearily plugged in my trusty Sony 7509's because I had to cut a VO and channel 4 blew the left driver in my Sony's. Same thing as before. No audio present, it just shorted while plugging the Headphones into the jack. I immediately pulled it from the rack. Over $500 in headphone cooked by a $150 headphone amp.

Lesson learned!!!!!!

I'm currently trying to decide if I buy more garbage products like ART and Behringer or just get the RANE (which I used to use quite regularly at another studio). I think in writing this post, I just answered that questions for myself.

Do yourself a favor and avoid the ART HeadAmp 6 Pro. You get what you pay for.

Ouch! I've been fortunate enough to not see any of that happen, and I've had it racked for mobile tracking / monitoring with my band, so its been banged around a bit. Definitely not in love with the unit by any means, but it does the job and I do like the front metering. After noticing the signal degradation on the higher channels I've been a bit skeptical of the guts... may think twice about plugging in my nicer cans from now on.

[Baz]

Rane is really solid and I also hate to admit it, but the Behringer Powerplay is really quite good.

[Bullseye]

I would suggest a letter to the company advising that without malfeasance or misfeasance on your part their product destroyed other gear for which the product was intended to be used. If they do not respond you might want to consider a small claims court action. Its a pain but the product seems to have been defective. If so the manufacturer should be responsible for damages caused by the product being used in the manner it was intended. This is what I believe should be done when defective gear causes damage to other gear. They should replace the unit and pay for the damages or risk a ruling deeming their product defective and opening them up to a stream of returned products and claims.

Caveat - no guarantee this will have the desired result and it is definitely more effort than it is worth considering the monetary values involved. On the other hand, what if it blew out a pair of 3k speakers or destroyed some other expensive gear. You would not hesitate. Also, don't know where you live but small claims courts are designed for just this purpose and no lawyer is required or even encouraged.

If, of course, you did something to the unit or misused it in any way causing this problem you can pretty much forget the above.

[Brad Lunde]

I found these Lehmann Headphone amps in Germany, and I like those a lot, brought some in, offer them on Lasvegasproaudio as its hard to get dealers interested. But I am trying to get his going and think Headphone amps are big deal. We all need better ones.

Great sounding headphone amps have proved not that easy to find (in pro). I used to use the a passive Simmons distro with a big hafter amp, that was good sounding. You could hear a big difference with each different amp you try with the Simmons.

Those Behringers and Furman with the 6 outputs and the little tiny amps inside don't sound very good to me, especially with lower impedance phones. Most of the headphone amps inside mixers also sound rather weak and don't really reveal what is going on.

Brad

[JoRillo]

Hey guys - dug this up as an attempt to ask a question or two without making a new thread, so could you do me the favor and respond?

I am looking to get a headphone amp 4-6 channels between $100-200.

Does anyone have an opinion on the ART HA 6 Pro 6 - ******//www.amazon.com/ART-HeadAmp-Ch...7457354&sr=1-3

and Do the Behringers sound that bad?

I have 1 dedicated output for headphones from my Duet 2 - and I record basically nothing but vocals (rap usually) so the other outputs would be for myself while doing my engineer thing and for the other people who are at the session. I don't want to hate every second I am sitting in the headphones, so if they sound like total shit then forget it, but I know not to be mixing on headphones plugged into the amp either way. I figure since it's not in the signal chain it won't matter, but at the same time no one wants to have to put their ears threw that.

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by JoRillo

and Do the Behringers sound that bad?

Yes. I've used the Behringer headphone amps and pretty much everything that could be bad was. Crosstalk, weak sound, each channel sounded different from the other. I got a used Rane and the difference was night and day. Behringer makes some stuff that's OK, but this isn't it.

[JoRillo]

Thanks for the feedback, anyone have a few more good suggestions for me?