Reddit mentions of ART HeadAMP4 Eight Output Stereo Headphone Amplifier

I think this is the best option. You could use whatever headphones you had laying around the house. Also it isn't super expensive.

[Here's one that can do 8 headphones] (https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-Powerplay-High-Power-Headphones-Distribution/dp/B000CZ0RMO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1480389627&sr=8-3&keywords=studio+headphone+amp)

[Here's one that can do 4 for $65] (https://www.amazon.com/ART-HeadAmp-Channel-Headphone-Amplifier/dp/B000M0TN6U/ref=sr_1_47?ie=UTF8&qid=1480389674&sr=8-47&keywords=studio+headphone+amp) I work in radio and we use that exact model in all our studios for guest headphone monitoring. They are nice little units that can be chained together. So if you only have the money for one at the moment, you could buy a second later, and link it to the first.

OOh! And here's my favorite budget headphone amp

You can theoretically get 8 people on it as long as they don't mind sharing volume in pairs :-)

I do. I have a MOTU UltraLite Mk3 which feeds into an ART HeadAmp4. Previously I ran from the MOTU headphone out to the ART input, but lately I use the main line outs on the MOTU. Same results.

The ART does give much more power than the interface when using big headphones, so that's nice. Other benefits: I can run multiple headphones at once, and I also use the ART to send the signal to my monitors. It's nice controlling the volume of monitors and headphones all in one place.

Thanks for the response! You've given me a lot to consider.

Something crucial I didn't know but realized last night while trying different settings on my audio interface: the sound on the computer is output to the audio interface, so i can monitor through the headphone jack on the interface and get both the local and remote voices in there. I really like the sound and gain of the H6 preamps, so if I had to record this weekend, I'd use H6 in combination with an ART HeadAMP4 (or similar) so everyone on my side could monitor.

I'd record the mixed output track to zencastr and if that sounds fine, I'd use that, but also record the individual tracks to the H6 as backup or just if I wanted a track not touched by Chrome's auto-gain. In this case I'd use the zencastr track for syncing.

I've considered having multiple laptops as a solution, but don't want to require guests to bring computers or have a second computer dedicated to running zencastr.

If you want to spend money and not just use your laptop you will need the following.

3 XLR microphones, stands and cables
A mixer with at least 3 XLR inputs
If you want to all listen on headphones you will need a splitter for that
A few assorted cables i will list
And garage band or some other recording software.

I have listed below what i used starting out.

[Microphones] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002T45X1G/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[Stands] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002M3OVI/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[Mixer] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000J5Y282/ref=oh_details_o08_s02_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[Headphones splitter] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M0TN6U/ref=oh_details_o08_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[Microphone cables] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008B2DBY6/ref=oh_details_o08_s02_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[Other cables] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HGM1D6/ref=oh_details_o08_s02_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1) These are used to go from your mixer into the recording device and also from the mixer into the headphone splitter.

Hope this helps.

I love love love my 595s. I'm thinking of picking up the pc360s for a headset when I wanna play and skype. I also bought this. So i can have speakers, noise canceling headphones, open-ear head headphones, and headset with mic all hooked up at the same time, all with different volume controls. It's amazing. Overkill.. yes, but that's what expendable income is for!

> I had read the Audio-Technica were either USB or XLR input. Does the USB effect the XLR or is it still just not as good? The mics you posted look great but will add about $240 in the mic department for the three of us. Granted, if that's what we have to do I think we would be good with the investment.


I'll clarify a little on the USB / XLR mic point. With any device, especially one that's low-cost (and a $50 mic really is a very low-cost mic), the manufacturer has a finite budget to put towards each feature or component within it. If we say that that $50 mic has $25 worth of components, the distribution of that is maybe around $10 for the housing and connectors, $10 for the parts necessary to give it a USB audio output, and then maybe $5 for the actual microphone, and the parts necessary to make it work. That's going to give you a poor quality USB audio output (iirc, it's only 16bit 44.1KHz, which is fine for a mastered output format, but very poor for a working format), and a poor microphone. Get a mic which doesn't have USB output however, and that $10 worth of USB audio circuitry can be put into the mic, giving you far better sound quality.

> I am not sure how I planned on hooking them up, that's a good question. Would I use a headphone amplifier for that?

Yep. Something like this would do the trick.

> Hmm, that is an interesting solution. I do have an older laptop that has Win 7, not sure on the CPU, though. Most of my experience has been with video editing and rendering, so I guess I assumed that audio would be more demanding like that. Is that not he case?

Audio is very easy on the CPU. If the system can support Win7, it'll have no problem capturing three channels of 24bit 44.1KHz audio. Applying effects in post (noise gates, EQ, compression, etc) will increase the CPU load, but anything built within the last ten years should be able to handle it without breaking a sweat. The worst case scenario is that your old laptop will struggle to process the effects on all three tracks in realtime, but if that's the case, there are ways to economize, such as by freezing tracks, or using more efficient (or less convoluted) effect plugins.

> Is there a 4 mic audio interface you would recommend?

None I'm familiar with, I'm afraid. However, my experience with my Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 would push me toward Forusrite's Scarlet 18i8, although I appreciate that one might be a little above your budget. Presonus' Audiobox 44VSL might be a bit more budget-friendly.


And yep, glad it helps. And please do send me a link to your podcast when the first one's ready. They really do make the working day go by so much better.