is the behringer headphone amp a piece of junk...

[G-Dawg]

just like the rest of behringers stuff?

i'm looking for a headphone amp with 4 outs on it and the ability to blend in an aux in for the click. and it needs to be rackmounted. can anyone recommend something, or rather anything else? it would help if it's under $100. thanks a lot!

[Dave Peck]

Go to www.furmansound.com

DP

[DeeDrive]

the behringer headphone amp is the only piece of behringer gear I own. (for good reason). I think it's very decent, it gets the job done, I don't really expect too much for a headphone amp though. I would recommend it. Good I/O, plenty of gain, bass/treble control could maybe be useful in some situations...

[aetucker1]

yes, it is a decent piece of gear...i like how it has stereo aux inputs for each channel so you can send each person their own mix if you really wanted to waste your time doing so. haha.

[squeegybug]

I owned two of them. Both broke quickly, unrepairable.

Under $100 with the features you mentioned? I don't know of any to recommend too highly. I have the Samson 4-ch S-Phones amp, it's a little better than the B*, but not a lot. I had Oz Audio, it also was worthless.

*Really* cheap pots and switches in these types of product.

If possible, try to go for Rane or Furman, etc., at least you might not have to keep buying it.

Steve

[RobR]

Headphones will break. Headophone amps will break.

[s.d.finley]

Mine has been working great for almost 4 years....you can burn these out, by hooking up many headphones that have hi impedance. The behr can only output so much...

sdf

[DeeDrive]

Originally Posted by s.d.finley

you can burn these out, by hooking up many headphones that have hi impedance. The behr can only output so much...

sdf

Do you mean low impedance? I would think that would burn them out. More current n all that.

[heartsoffire]

I've used one for the past four years. It stays racked. Works fine.

[s.d.finley]

Originally Posted by DeeDrive

Do you mean low impedance? I would think that would burn them out. More current n all that.

Doooh!!

Yes....youre right

sdf

[espasonico]

It´s good enough for the Low End Theory threads. It can save your ass in many ocasions but you can´t have that in a more "pro" studio because it doesn´t sound as good as better ( and expensier ) units. For the price it´s great. I have use it without any problems.

[Robcamp]

I had one for about 6 months, it literaly caught fire in my rack! After hitting the power button on the rack, yanking it out and changing my underwear, it went directly in the trash

For you folks using these, put a hand on it when it's been on for awhile. Kinda warm? Keep it away from your good gear.

Rob

[James HE]

If it's something you use only occasionally, sure it's great. I use the headphone out on my board and or my interface if I'm tracking myself or doing overdubs.

I find it noisy. But it is loud. I have the 4 channel one. supposedly the 4 channel one is better as far as handling different loads.

It has the right features. It is cheap. Is it pro. Hell no. But being pro is just geting it done sometimes.

[nukmusic]

no problems with mine what happen to your? how did it break?

[squeegybug]

Originally Posted by nukmusic

how did it break?

First was the switches (mute, mono, etc.). Started crackling and cutting out when even barely touched, then started doing it all the time whether touched or not. Then the pots started scratching.

I got rid of them and got the Samson, and its main level pot started doing the same thing right away. It is practically the same design as Behringer anyway, I imagine they are both some generic model cranked out in PRC and rebranded. Single PCB, all the front panel controls sealed in an inaccessible channel so can't be repaired.

Hey, I'm happy to use the reasonable good deal I can get... but neither sounded good at all anyway, very dark and fuzzy. I only needed 2 HP channels and was buying the Central Station anyway, it has excellent HP amps so I'm just using that.

Steve

[Don Hearl]

mine has audible 60 cycle hum in the two headouts outs closest to the power cord. Im quickly moving away from this unit.

don

[Yetti]

Originally Posted by squeegybug

I had Oz Audio, it also was worthless.


Steve

Hey Steve,
I am just curious....
Which OZ Audio seemed worthless?
I have the OZ 6 channel mixer/ headphone amp, and I love it! It looks well built, well worth $250.
With 4 seperate injection ports and 6 channels, it has been great just letting each musician dial in their own headphone mix.( Just my experience with it)
Regardless...
Behringer is the Boonesfarm wine of audio products.
Cheers!

[ramjet]

hi

i have had one for about five years and have flogged the crap out of it and it still works although i now use a alesis ra-100 amp to drive my headphones and in terms of sound quality it craps all over the behringer.

cheers

[squeegybug]

I am just curious.... Which OZ Audio seemed worthless?

Hi Yetti,

Yeah, I should have been more specific there. I had the Oz HR-4. The power socket collapsed and fell inside the unit the first time I plugged it it. The sound leaked in all channels, even if muted or turned all the way down. The L/R balance was way off in a couple of channels, and shifted as the volume was changed. Some of these problems varied, depending on whether the phones were plugged in the front or rear jacks.

I don't like to trash equipment that others may like, just offering my experiences.

Steve

[Yetti]

Originally Posted by squeegybug

Hi Yetti,

Yeah, I should have been more specific there. I had the Oz HR-4. The power socket collapsed and fell inside the unit the first time I plugged it it. The sound leaked in all channels, even if muted or turned all the way down. The L/R balance was way off in a couple of channels, and shifted as the volume was changed. Some of these problems varied, depending on whether the phones were plugged in the front or rear jacks.

I don't like to trash equipment that others may like, just offering my experiences.

Steve

Hi Steve,
If I had an experience like that, I would have said that Oz sucked for sure.
Maybe your HR-4 was built by guys fired from Behringer, for doing extra crappy work?
Peace Brotha!

[aussie_techie]

one channel on ours now has alot white noise in it, been going a few years and the other chans are still fine. i still prefer to use the b over the samson.
most b stuff will break after a few years and it is realy a hit or mixx if it lasts but they are often worth while to get the job done.

IMO get the b then in a couple of years when it breaks you can put in a proper monitoring system

[tamasdragon]

Or check out mackie's headphone amp, or headphone matrix. Behringer's one is not bad at all. We used here in live situation and it was fine.
Regards Tamas Dragon

[Gilliland]

Behringer has multiple headphone amps in their product line. I rather like the HA4700, though it isn't as clean as I'd like (shows a bit of hum and perhaps some RFI). But it can drive a lot of headphones at the same time, even low impedance ones.

The HA8000 is somewhat less successful at driving low impedance loads. The Amp800 is their cheapie. I've never used it (and I don't plan to), but I don't expect much from it.

[djinnocyde]

samson s-phone.
139.99
aux on each channel
2 band eq
rackmountable
direct inject on front panel
its not behringer!

ive had one for a while.
works well
wont catch fire....its passed fcc regulations

thats my 2 cents
db

[George Necola]

the HA4700 is the loudest

my behringer headphoneamp worked for one year flawlessly then no sound was comming in on one channel. a weeklater a jackconnecter broke (Line in) and I threw it away.

louder than behringer is M&M (music and more) HP48 headphoneamp. you will find em cheap on ebay

behringer HPamp is cool, reliable for the price and the routingoptions are incredible. Quality of the parts is very bad.

cheers George

[mwd]

I have the HA8000 for a couple of years with no probs. I made sure it was an insulated (isolated) rack mount and I use conditioned single ground juice for all my gear.

Runs dead silent. I have heard of people getting 8th channel line noise due to where the power supply is and it makes sense but I only needed a couple of channels so I stayed away from the 8th channel.

Dual source or A/B is awesome in my application to monitor headphone mix or input source.

But maybe they all have that. I haven't tried others as this one fit the bill.

[Jonboy79]

I also have the 8 channel version and it's worked fine for almost 2 years or heavy use.

[JariNi]

There are problems connecting low impedance headphones to behringer ha4700. The result is a terrible buzz.

I tried to use it as a wired in-ear system with shure e2, but there is an annoying buzz which gets worse on every channel closer to the power supply.

Using the unit with "normal" headphones there is no audible hiss or hum, clean enough for me.

[NuSkoolTone]

I recently did a session with the 4700. I grabbed it because I didn't have a headphone amp and was tired of chaining mixers.

Went without a hitch and no complaints from the client(using Gerst "more me" headphones no less!). The next step I guess would be Mackie's new offering (A revamp of the 6 channel Oz), then from there we're getting slutty I suppose. I figured for now as long as it doesn't outright suck, it will do. I'm concentrating my monies on the sonics of the recording gear. Hopefully it will last long enough for when a "Slutty headphone amp" is appropriate for me.

I can hear how it's a hair grungy, but it works. It's not inspirational sounding but there's nothing under $200 that can touch it IMO. The versatility is great. As a bonus, it will drive cheap 32ohm headphones with no problem. In fact I drove three off of one channel! From a functional point of view, the ability to drive 12 headphones for about $100 is pretty cool.

Keep in mind I've had the thing for a month, talk to me in 2-3 years.....

[2012]

Originally Posted by dooleydog

mine has audible 60 cycle hum in the two headouts outs closest to the power cord. Im quickly moving away from this unit.

i have the HA8000... i desperately wanted to go with something other than Beezlebub gear, but i needed at least 5 independent headphone mixes for live bands, and the HA8000 has direct inputs on every channel, and was affordable.

it gets the job done... using Sennheiser HD280's and AKG-K44's. no one has complained about a lack of volume, not even the drummer, so i don't think you'll have to worry about that.

however, these things are noisy on certain channels. most notably... channels 7 & 8 (the ones closest to the power supply) there is a little bit of noise on channel 6, even less on channel 5, and channels 1-4 are clean (at least compared to channels 7 & 8) i ordered a replacement unit, and had the exact same problem, with varying degrees of noise. it was really no better than the first...and one of the LEDs was about 5x brighter than all the rest.

channels 7 & 8 are unusable for me. i can't listen to it without thinking of suicide and i wouldn't put a client through it either. however since i only need 5 or 6 channels at the most, this works for me. channels 7 & 8 aren't hooked up at all.

this is the only piece of Beezlebub gear i have, because the features and price are what i was looking for... however i wish it wasn't.

i'd like another company to directly copy Beezlebub's design on their headphone amps, and i'd buy it, even if it was a bit more cash.

and the poster who mentioned the heat of this unit is correct... it can get toasty when driving a lot of cans, so take that into consideration when/if racking it.

GOOD LUCK is the best advice you can be given when it comes to the B word.