Headphone crew

[Macc]

Ah! Impedance! Forgot about that!

Forgot about that really important thing, right?

My 4-way one is to drive some HD 202's for when recording bands on-location so the quality doesn't need to be great - it's all about the loudness & noise/headphone leakage reduction when doing that. My monitoring headphones, however, are at the right impedance for my interface output.

Yeah, that's one thing - low impedance not-top-notch quality high volume headphones for on stage/studio monitoring. This is what I was saying - there are headphone amps, and there are headphone amps.

I guess if it's made using super high-quality gold-plated sparkling-clean demagnetized balanced (etc etc) valves and stuff, that's great, but how many other people will hear it under those conditions? I've always thought that it's best to get something sounding good on 10/15 different crappy speakers/headphones in 10/15 different rooms etc as opposed to super clean on 1 set of headphones...

Bhima, what are you on about? I've read this a number of times, and while it's a fair point, that's a mixing/translation point and not really anything to do with headphone amps per se. If you're using headphones for most/all of your work - as I am - then it is of course of the UTMOST importance that things sound as good as they possibly can, in order to provide the good translation you're alluding to. Therefore >>>> best cans for the purpose + best amp for the purpose.

If I'm reading you right, you're saying 'what's the point of quality monitoring? No one else listens on quality gear' Let's all mix on our laptops then

Note to bhima: Engage squidgy grey thing in your head before posting