Any Solution to No Jack.??
 

I'm not ready to buy a new amp but I am looking forward to my first $500 amp in the coming months.

I have a Fender Champion 20. I love it. I often play through headphones but I'm noticing a lot of amps don't have a headphone jack. Am I correct to assume an output jack can be used for headphones.??

At this point I have 3 amps on my radar. Fender Blues Junior, Fender Super Champ x2 and a Bugera 22v Infinium. I don't think any of the 3 have either a headphone jack or an output jack.

What's up with that.?? Listening with headphones is my preferred method when using the loop pedal. And I can play when others are in the house. I don't think I could buy an amp without a jack.

Any solution to this.?? If not, throw me some links to amps that do have an output or a headphone jack. I don't understand......

I have a Fender Acoustasonic amp, pretty small but its got a lot of power and has good sound. Also it does have a headphone/output jack.

https://youtu.be/djF54Ol3FK4


It is possible to take apart an amplifier and add a headphone jack, however that would be a lot of work...

The Fender Bassbreaker 007 has the line output jack. It’s a hot rodded 7 watt tube amp with 10” Celestion speaker.

amps like the ones you're heading to purchase don't have head phone jacks.

I think its more intended to be a practice amp kind of feature.

What's not to understand? Some amps have headphone jacks, some don't. Buy one that does. Regarding using the line out for headphones:

Line level outputs typically have a source impedance of 50 to a few hundred ohms. They are intended to drive loads that have a high input impedance, usually greater than 5k ohms. They are typically optimized for very low noise and low distortion when used with high impedance loads.

Headphone outputs typically have a source impedance less than a hundred ohms and the better ones have a source impedance of a few ohms or less. They are intended to drive the lower impedances presented by headphones which typically range from 16 ohms to 300 ohms. They are optimized for being able to drive higher current and for delivering reasonable distortion and noise with low impedance loads.

Line level outputs usually do poorly when driving headphones because their higher source impedance will not properly damp the driver at low frequencies and they can suffer from high frequency rollof when loaded with significant capacitance.

Headphone outputs can be used to drive line level loads and can provide good noise and distortion performance but are typically not as good as line level outputs.

I know I made a lot of generalizations here and that there will always be exceptions, but these are just some rules of thumb.

My guess is you’ll find a headphone jack across the board on all the modern modelling amps.

For the OP - It sounds like you want a small tube amp - they sound good but are pretty loud. You need to go another route to turn down real low or use headphones. I am not trying talk you out of a nice amp - go for it.

Try an amp sim pedal like a Joyo American Sound (35 bucks or so on Ebay) You can hook the output to a stereo, powered speakers or headphones for quiet inside practice when the tube amp would have too much "presence". That's what I do to stay in good graces with she who watches TV.

Yep, most/all solid state amps will have them. (Big reason why I own one). Won't come with any tube amp though.

OP here... Okay. I now have a better understanding of amplifiers. Boy, I'd like to talk to that engineer. 287 effects onboard with a headphone jack. Reverb onboard, headphone jack, zilch, 19, nothing, nada, nope, shaking head no. No jack. Why not.?? And I didn't understand the long reply about ohms. That went in one ear and out the other. lol.

Okay then.... Um, let me pose the question this way. Name me some great sounding amps in the "apartment" category. With or without a jack. Gee, my $130 Fender amp is looking pretty good to me right now. wink.

I would stick with that Fender Champion 20 you have now - I’m also a low volume player (I have really cranky neighbors - you know those heavy drinker types that fall asleep after a few beers on the verge of passing out - well the effects of alcohol takes away a vital part of their deep sleep pattern, so after years of true rest deprivation - if you wake them up too early in the morning - watch out!). Anyway, what I’ve discovered even with my small tube amps is full quality tone at very low volumes - even lower volume than acoustic guitar - this is all an important consideration in the face of the declining number of live venues for electric guitar - manufacturers are interested in finding out if the private home market (much larger than the pro stage level guys) is a feasible market - and it is!

I won't try to explain why but most valve amps don't have headphone outputs.
There are a few lower power tube/transistor hybrid amps that do allow silent practice using headphones.

Check out the Blackstar HT-1R MkII combo. That does have a headphone output though I'm not sure how well it works. Sounds like a nice amp though and 1 watt is all you need for quiet playing.

Yeah, I only put the part that mattered in bold and italics, so I'll underline it too:

Line level outputs usually do poorly when driving headphones

Without wanting to delve too deeply into the matter, purely technically it's quite possible to install a headphone output in tube amplifiers. However, the currents and voltages in a tube circuit differ fundamentally from a transistor circuit, they are simply too high. It is therefore necessary to create an impedance converter at the preamplifier output by means of a buffer amplifier, which opens into the headphone circuit with a correspondingly low impedance. This means that the circuitry for a headphone output in a tube amplifier is much more complex than in a transistor amplifier and therefore much more expensive. In connection with solid-state electronics it's much easier and cheaper to implement! In addition, it is much more difficult to keep the required frequency range free of background noise in tube amplifiers.

Thanks for that post. I understand most of it. "headphones into a tube amp is complex."

Maybe I missed something, but unless your budget is super tight, you can always buy any number of different headphone amps. I think they start around $35 and go up from there. Far more portable of course than an amp by itself so there are some advantages to that.... Good luck!