Community: Message List

Re: spider III headphone out distortion

support@line6.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:41:19 GMT

OK I'm back. I tried replacing the battery in the DI and I tried using a constant 9 volt power supply for the DI. These did clean up the distortion a bit, but the sound that comes from the headphone jack is still different than what comes out of the speaker on the amp. I tried changing to a stereo cable from the amp to the DI - no improvement.

So I am back to mic-ing the amp speaker to the board. This works fine, but doesn't give everyone in the band the same mix as me since I am hearing my amp more than anyone else.

I guess it makes sense that the signal coming out of the headphone jack will sound different because it's not going through the Celestion speaker in the cabinet. I just didn't realize how much of the final sound is influenced by the speaker. Too bad Line 6 can't get a "true" version of the sound to come out of a jack that you can send directly to the board. Maybe a higher end Line 6 amp would be more able to accomlish this.

Re: spider III headphone out distortion

support@line6.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:55:09 GMT

Thanks.

I should have given more info in the first post. The sound is always good directly from the amp even when it sounds terrible from the line out/headphone jack, so it seems like the amp is fine. It sounds bad through the heaphone jack on any setting - clean is thin and distorted, and more raunchy sounds are like a bad speaker is overloading. We tried different channels on the mixing board and it is the same, so I don't think its the board. I don't have a decent set of headphones to try, but that's a good thought. We tried different mono cables, so its not that. The Bose unit sounds good for everyone else, so its not that. So that leaves the DI unit, or trying a stereo cable from the amp to the DI. Thanks for pointing out that the headphone jack puts out enough power to drive headphones (which is more than a typical "line out" ) - maybe the DI is over heating or the mono cable I am using is creating heat in the headphone jack. I'll try these ideas and post back in the next week or so.

spider III headphone out distortion

support@line6.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:28:17 GMT

I use the headphone out jack to run a direct feed to a Bose L1 unit. It seems to work fine at the start of the night, but becomes progressively more distorted (in a bad way) as the night goes on, until the signal is unusable. If I unplug the headphone line and just listen to the amp it sounds fine. Is there something that overheats in the headphone circuit?