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#1
03-09-2013, 02:52 PM
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Difference between headphone output and ...
What is the difference in a headphone output vs line output? Any difference in quality? I often use the headphone output to my mixer and it seems just fine. But am I losing out on quality?
Thanks in advance. 
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#2
03-09-2013, 05:14 PM
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What type of gear with the headphone output are you referring to ? It's possible the headphone output is going through an additional, maybe not as high quality amplifier circuit compared to the line output which is considered more critical for some types of gear. On the other hand a headphone output on a pro piece of recording gear like a mixer or monitor switcher should be just as high quality as the main outputs, because some people mix or check mixes with their headphones.
Naturally, quality does vary in all these things, a $50 wall wart powered headphone distributor sounds worse than a Mackie small mixer headphone out which sounds worse than my Rane HC6... etc. As far as the type of signal, usually headphone output impedances are lower than line output impedance and they may not have quite as much headroom. But they have their own volume controls, so you can just turn them down enough to avoid clipping... and you want to be careful how much volume you send to headphones anyway. More headroom in headphone outputs could mean more hearing damage. I'd rather have the distortion to let me know the thing is getting really loud. Headphones as line outs usually works OK and I wouldn't worry about it if it was for a small show or something like that. If I was recording something important I'd probably try to find another way.
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#3
03-10-2013, 10:02 AM
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Quote:
It's about matching impedances and the quality of the circuit. In a pinch, it's OK. For standard practices, not so much. Regards, Ty Ford
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