DustinDenisio

I really appreciate everyone's quick response in talking with me on this. I do want to try going S/PDIF, does anyone have any recommendations of S/PDIF cables? I see Sweetwater has $40 cables for a 6 footer, anything cheaper than that??

Thanks man. Yeah I was mainly going XLR because I had the XLR cables and figured that's what I use live, or micing up an amp would be an xlr and helix has the ability to send a mic level input. Upon further playing today, I actually don't hear THAT much of a difference between the Helix HP Input and my Focusrite HP Input. All of this started upon getting new pickups put in my Epi Sheraton. I was quickly A/B'ing yesterday and was so frustrated that I forgot to check output levels. The Helix HP level was a bit hotter than the Focusrite. Upon matching, I don't honestly hear too much of a difference to really matter.

Thanks for providing your input! Upon first getting my Helix it became my studio interface and I loved the way it sounded with my KRK KNS8400 headphones. But four years later, I decided I wanted to get a dedicated interface to handle some additional i/o and frankly just wasn't thrilled with utilizing the Helix as my interface. Although it is super convenient for just recording guitar. I got used to the headphone amp on the Scarlett and frankly it's pretty close but after a quick test today using a Princeton amp model, the Helix HP amp sounds a little bit fuller in the bass and the Focusrite with these KRK Cans just doesn't sound the same. Its so weird and frusturating!

Appreciate your thoughts. Will look into the S/PDIF as I’ve seen other posts mentioning this. Running XLR because I’ve done this live so I had extra XLR cables and it just made sense to me. Regarding my cans, yes I realize any marketing department can wax poetic on the product, was just referring to the fact that they aren’t $10 ear buds. The set I use are the KRK KNS8400 which apparently are 36 Ohms. My interface is the 3rd gen version. So for example, every time I compare the two by plugging in my headphones to both, the focusrite sounds slightly thinner and with less low end, when compared to monitoring the direct signal. It’s quite subtle but I can hear it. Besides going S/PDIF, would buying headphones with higher OHMs fix this?

Hey all, I have owned the helix for about 4 years now. Love using it and am very comfortable with it. It was my primary recording interface until last year when I opted to expand my studio to a focusrite Scarlett 18i8. I run XLR outs from helix into Scarlett. Mix pre gain volume on 0, helix on 100%, panned L/R when recording stereo in focusrite mix control software. My issue is this, while the recorded sound didn’t differ to my ears running the helix xlr, I did notice a diff when comparing the focusrite Scarlett headphone out and helix headphone out. While most tests I can’t hear an audible difference of xlr vs usb, but the helix headphone out sounds much better and has a fuller sound. I don’t want to use the helix as an interface because I have other gear hooked up to the focusrite and prefer to use the helix patched into the focusrite for flexibility. Has anyone else ever noticed this on the headphones though? To those using helix with an interface, did you compare running your unit vs unit/interface and the headphone out? I’m using quality studio-grade cans from KRK.