The importance of Headphone amplier?

[AcousticDreams]

From my other thread "Which comes first? New preamp or new Interface?", I learned that Mic preamps are more important. That convertors are good enough in the lower tier interface. Also indicated that Line level electronics were good enough as well.

The question now is directed at the inboard headphone amplifier in lower tiered interfaces.

Are headphone amps in the lower tier interfaces( Such as my Scarlet 18i20 first generation), be good enough as well? Monitoring accuracy can be of great value.
I have seen some discussions mentioning this subject matter.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

From my other thread "Which comes first? New preamp or new Interface?", I learned that Mic preamps are more important. That convertors are good enough in the lower tier interface. Also indicated that Line level electronics were good enough as well.

The question now is directed at the inboard headphone amplifier in lower tiered interfaces.

Are headphone amps in the lower tier interfaces( Such as my Scarlet 18i20 first generation), be good enough as well? Monitoring accuracy can be of great value.
I have seen some discussions mentioning this subject matter.

That's where the Sheffield Disk D/A tests I mentioned are useful. They'll measure how well your interface plays back fine details. I suggest monitoring over speakers, tho...

[rockabilly69]

I think that the headphone outputs in most interfaces are the wink link. I have Drawmer headphone amps / monitor controllers, in both my project studio and in my home recording room. And I love them. They have plenty of power to drive the most inefficient headphones (ie AKG), and so many routing options. They also allow you to reverse phase, listen in mono, isolate the left and right channels, control a sub, etc. I love them and would buy one again to replace either if it failed. I have the MC2.1 in my studio, and CMC2 in the house.

[Gordon Currie]

Unsure how you use headphones.

Some of my usage is monitoring myself playing, but way more is monitoring myself playing over existing recorded parts.

I never use headphones to make critical sound decisions; only did I play that cleanly, in rhythm, minimal noises, in sync with other parts etc.

In this scenario, getting the highest possible quality has little significance to me. The circuitry in my (higher quality) interface has all the quality I'll ever need.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Are headphone amps in the lower tier interfaces( Such as my Scarlet 18i20 first generation), be good enough as well? Monitoring accuracy can be of great value.

The headphones themselves are probably more important. Good headphones with a mediocre amp will still sound better than a great amp with crummy headphones. What headphones to you use or plan to use? And will you use them for multi-tracking, or just listening at mixdown?

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

I think that the headphone outputs in most interfaces are the wink link. I have Drawmer headphone amps / monitor controllers, in both my project studio and in my home recording room. And I love them. They have plenty of power to drive the most inefficient headphones (ie AKG), and so many routing options. They also allow you to reverse phase, listen in mono, isolate the left and right channels, control a sub, etc. I love them and would buy one again to replace either if it failed. I have the MC2.1 in my studio, and CMC2 in the house.

Good info I will look closer at the Drawmer.

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

Unsure how you use headphones.

Some of my usage is monitoring myself playing, but way more is monitoring myself playing over existing recorded parts.

I never use headphones to make critical sound decisions; only did I play that cleanly, in rhythm, minimal noises, in sync with other parts etc.

In this scenario, getting the highest possible quality has little significance to me. The circuitry in my (higher quality) interface has all the quality I'll ever need.

Since I am the engineer, player, button pusher, I believe that headphones will be of great value to myself. The reason why is microphone placement. As you know it can be very critical. One inch can make all the difference in sound capture. How each of the mics are angled can reveal phasing issues. Even distortion issues.

It is so hard for myself to play and monitor recording levels. I play with a large dynamic volume range. Can not keep eyes on the screen all the time. Viewing graphs, spectrum and record levels is great, but listening also has excellent value. Sometimes the Human's ability to detect & reason discover items that Science accidentally overlooked.
Yes of course I will play back over monitors....but moving the mics around and really listening through headphones is where I must first start.

Originally Posted by Chipotle

The headphones themselves are probably more important. Good headphones with a mediocre amp will still sound better than a great amp with crummy headphones. What headphones to you use or plan to use? And will you use them for multi-tracking, or just listening at mixdown?

Sennheiser HD380 Pro. Certainly not the absolute highest quality, but certainly of reasonable quality.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Good info I will look closer at the Drawmer.

If it's just you working by yourself, this is the one I absolutely recommend ...


https://www.drawmer.com/products/mon...controller.php


This is a very good overview of it's capabilities, and I agree with writer on all points... https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/drawmer-cmc2

[rick-slo]

The headphones themselves are more important than the amp, however high impedance headphones need a amp with enough power to drive them.
Personally I am using a RME unit for the headphone amplification for Grado 225 headphones.

[Doug Young]

I think you may have a tough time using headphones for mic placement, Victor. Worth a try, of course. But it never works well for me, too much bleed, and the sound is so different than over speakers that I always end up rejecting the placements I get when I use headphones. You have very loud guitars, and play loud, so you'll have an even harder time knowing if what you hear is really what's being recorded. Even a small acoustic bleed will warp your impressions.

I have a set of drummer's headphones, basically Sony 7506's in a special headphone, incredibly isolating. That part works, but there's such a "cut-off from the world" with them, that I've also had no luck doing mic placement using them.

I just place by trial and error, position, listen, tweak, listen, etc. After having done that for years, I don't much need to anymore, tho, I know where they should go for my guitars and playing.

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I think you may have a tough time using headphones for mic placement, Victor. Worth a try, of course. But it never works well for me, too much bleed, and the sound is so different than over speakers that I always end up rejecting the placements I get when I use headphones. You have very loud guitars, and play loud, so you'll have an even harder time knowing if what you hear is really what's being recorded. Even a small acoustic bleed will warp your impressions.

I have a set of drummer's headphones, basically Sony 7506's in a special headphone, incredibly isolating. That part works, but there's such a "cut-off from the world" with them, that I've also had no luck doing mic placement using them.

I just place by trial and error, position, listen, tweak, listen, etc. After having done that for years, I don't much need to anymore, tho, I know where they should go for my guitars and playing.

As always, great points my friend. I am sure that once I listen to it in playback I will have to make tweaks as you said.

However The headphones will tell me stuff like if I am getting too much of the sound hole. It does help me hear if there are Phasing issues. And again helps me right now, with levels.

After I have had time to really play around and become familiar with my new set up, then I am sure I will have to be more critical in playback mode. But for now, until I learn the ropes, I believe they will have some good value.

I was actually quite surprised that those Sennheisers gave reasonable isolation...Or..I just had the level of the headphones up to loud. ha ha...That is the problem with us old rockers. We like it loud. LOL I learned early on, loud causes great problems with mixing.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Good info I will look closer at the Drawmer.

Since I am the engineer, player, button pusher, I believe that headphones will be of great value to myself. The reason why is microphone placement. As you know it can be very critical. One inch can make all the difference in sound capture. How each of the mics are angled can reveal phasing issues. Even distortion issues.

It is so hard for myself to play and monitor recording levels. I play with a large dynamic volume range. Can not keep eyes on the screen all the time. Viewing graphs, spectrum and record levels is great, but listening also has excellent value. Sometimes the Human's ability to detect & reason discover items that Science accidentally overlooked.
Yes of course I will play back over monitors....but moving the mics around and really listening through headphones is where I must first start.

Sennheiser HD380 Pro. Certainly not the absolute highest quality, but certainly of reasonable quality.

As far as watching your levels, if you don't play in a way that produces a uniform signal then simply set your levels to give you at least 3db of room before hitting 0 db when you play at your loudest and get on with the creative process.

As long as you're recording 24 bit audio you'll have no trouble setting your levels in your DAW when editing. I've found that 24 bit recording lets me forget about the need to watch the metering.

Others might have a different view of this, but that's just a practical way of recording without babysitting levels. We have enough to concern ourselves with in the performance without having to sit in the engineer's chair at the same time.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

However The headphones will tell me stuff like if I am getting too much of the sound hole. It does help me hear if there are Phasing issues. And again helps me right now, with levels.

Those tend to be the things I can't tell from headphones. I just know to avoid the soundhole, but trying to find the sweet spot in headphones never gave me anything I liked once I listened over speakers. Probably just me...

Phase is a whole different can of worms. The only way to hear phase is to blend to mono - so in that respect, the headphone preamp recommended previously would be handy. But you're also going to be dealing with phase between the mic'd sound and bleed from your guitar, so to the extent you hear phase, it may not be real, it may be an artifact of the bleed, which won't show up in your recording. In my opinion, phase is all but a non-issue with guitar, solo guitar, at least. It only shows up if you play back in mono, and if that's likely, I'd go for XY or MS, and then you don't have phase issues. If you use spaced pairs, phase is an inherent part of the sound - if you get rid of it, you don't have the sound of spaced pairs. Phase gets to be more of an issue when you have more mics, like 3-4 mics on the guitar, or a mic on the guitar and vocals (recording more than one source at a time). I often do use 3-4 mics, and in that case, I'm watching for phase issues between the mics, but not so much between a single stereo pair.

What I do is simply, 1) know not to put mics in front of the soundhole, 2) keep mics about the same distance from the guitar for spaced setups, so that any phase differences are due to the intended nature of spaced pairs, and 3) use meters for balance, levels, phase correlation and so on.

.Or..I just had the level of the headphones up to loud. ha ha...That is the problem with us old rockers. We like it loud. LOL I learned early on, loud causes great problems with mixing.

That's of course, a whole different issue - you get into Fletcher-Munson territory, where you fool yourself about the tone, which can effect the mic placement choices and so on. You want to monitor at a reasonable level - usually around 80db, which may be quieter than you play :-)

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

As far as watching your levels, if you don't play in a way that produces a uniform signal then simply set your levels to give you at least 3db of room before hitting 0 db when you play at your loudest and get on with the creative process.

As long as you're recording 24 bit audio you'll have no trouble setting your levels in your DAW when editing. I've found that 24 bit recording lets me forget about the need to watch the metering.

Others might have a different view of this, but that's just a practical way of recording without babysitting levels. We have enough to concern ourselves with in the performance without having to sit in the engineer's chair at the same time.

I agree with this method for setting levels. It allows me to ignore levels while I’m playing / recording. However, I set levels to be a bit more forgiving, making sure my loudest playing is down at least 6dB from full scale. You’re only losing 1 bit of a/d resolution for each 6dB; insignificant in a 24 bit adc recording.

[ChuckS]

As far as headphone amps, I think it’s another part of your gear planning. For example: if a monitor controller might be a big deal to me in terms of workflow I’ll have that in my gear acquisition plan and make sure that other prior purchases make sense in my longer term plan; if I plan on buying external preamps in the future I'm not going to spend extra on an interface that has great preamps. Also, I like to try, over time, to acquire gear that is a jump up in performance but not crazy out of balance (in terms of cost and performance) with the rest of my gear.

In general I think most mid tier audio interfaces have reasonable headphone amps, assuming you are satisfied with the DACs in the interface. It also depends on the headphones; low sensitivity headphones need more power for the same SPL, high impedance headphones require a higher voltage to drive them, low impedance headphones require more current to drive them.

I’m not familiar with your Focusrite 18i20, but I used to have a 1st generation 6i6 and I felt its headphone amp was ‘marginally’ ok at best.

If you start looking at dedicated headphone amps you’ll also have to determine if you want the DAC to be built into the amp, or not.

Remember, if you keep looking in the AGF custom sub-forum you will need a new guitar, keep looking In Gearslutz you will need new preamps and converters, keep looking in Head-fi and you will need a new HP amp and headphones.

[KevWind]

Another good question.
I use HP's all the time for both tracking (dubs) and mixing ( not disturbing family) However I have separate tracking and mixing HP's. I have some old Senn. 280 (closed back) for tracking and Senn 600 (open back) for mixing.
Note however I also have some nice studio monitor speakers, and all recordings are monitored on both speakers and HP's, before pronounced "done"

As far as HP amp? So far I just use the HP out on my interface (which I suppose one could call upper mid, or start of the high end, (Avid OMNI)
IF,,,, I was looking for a good HP amp, I would seriously consider the Grace Designs m900 @ $ 550-ish