VOX amPlug 2 Bass Headphone Amp

I have two auxiliary cables and one produces noise and the second much less. The last is shielded and the first is not. Turning down the Tone usually helps but you really can’t expect hi-fi from the Vox.

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My Vox has never hissed or made other noises. But I needed something more durable.

My Waza Air-Bass has been rock-solid. I haven’t had a single problem with its performance since day one.

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Yeah exactly for the money it’s great value!

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I understand the love for the Waza Air Bass. However, we are talking about two very diiferent classes of product.

$40 AmPlug versus $400 Waza Air

The Waza Air d@mn well better be awaesome! :rofl:

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Considering the wildly divergent rabbit holes that thread topics routinely drop into, this one pretty has pretty well stayed the course. For those who want/need a headphone amp, the AmPlug could suffice. If it doesn’t, for whatever reason, there are options in different price ranges. Waza is just one of them.

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@Paul mentioned this back in Jun 2021 and it’s still true. For less than $100 you get way better sound quality than the VOX plus you get to learn about pedals, amp sims, built in drum machine, tuner etc. at 1/4 if the price of the Waza Air (which looks amazing I admit!)

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That’s the route I took for headphones practice/playing. I still own an AmPlug, and it’s always worked well enough. But I wanted more volume output.

I also used the headphone jack on my Rumble 40, but it still left something to be desired.

I next got a B1 Four for all of its coolness at a bargain price. I plugged phones into it but was underwhelmed with its volume.

So I ran it into my amp, and plugged my phones into the amp. Voilá! Now I had all the volume I wanted, plus cab sims, effects, drums, etc. in my headphones.

The Waza came later and I use it 99% of the time over all my other gear.

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Interesting I just pulled out my old Zoom, plugged in my P Bass, selected a factory patch (Motown) and turned up the volume dial to max. It hurts my ears.

So lots of possibilities. You got a duff Zoom unit, your headphones aren’t very loud (unlikely), you are more deaf than me (again unlikely).

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Just plugged back into my HX Stomp after the Zoom. Oh boy this thing sounds amazing in comparison :slight_smile:

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Oh, you’re maxed out at 120. I tried that but got distortion. Backing off to 100 cleaned things up.

Running my B1 Four into my amp worked fine.

I haven’t tried the B1 Four headphones out solo in a while. I’ll fire it up to see if Venus has finally aligned with Mars.

As an aside, I have the volume on my Air-Bass (and my basses) turned down because otherwise it would make my head explode. :exploding_head:

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If you have the Waza then you’ll be underwhelmed. However, I think for the money it’s amazing.

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If you read right to left they’re the same price! :yum:

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I agree. The B1 Four is great.

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Actually this may not be so unlikely if he has high impedance 'phones. Zoom output is designed for 32 ohm headphones, like most. There’s also a lot of 16 ohm 'phones which will sound louder, and many higher grade high impedance ones that will sound more quiet. This is actually pretty common.

yeah it’s much better. The Zoom is amazing for the price but is very outclassed by the Helix line.

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OK, so I just learned something. Which is always cool. Thanks
My Sennheiser Open Backed ones are 50 Ohms

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Yeah, my Beyerdynamics are 250, which worked but really needed another amp.

This is also what makes the Zoom sound better on 'phones when going through a secondary amp. You lose a lot of low and high end definition when you underdrive phones; it’s a worse problem than volume, even. This is why many people drive high impedance headphones with a dedicated headphone amp.

50 like your Sennheiser is not bad at all though, a lot of monitor 'phones in that range. The best selling monitor of all time, the Sony MDR-V6, is 63 ohms for example.

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So is it a linear scale? i.e are your 250 Ohms phones 5 times quieter than my 50 Ohms ones? Or as usual is it a bit more complicated?

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It’s not linear, no. And before the volume is an issue the tonal clarity is.

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The biggest issue is that you can drive these 200+ ohm headphones from your regular audio interface, but it doesn’t sound right. The thing is that until you drive these headphones through some amplifier you don’t even know it. I had my 250 ohms 990 Pros hooked straight to my interface and I could drive them enough. Barely but enough. But I bought Sennheiser HD 600 which are 300 ohms and the interface couldn’t drive them. So I bought quite cheap ART 6 head preamp and connected these high impedance headphones to it and only after I could feed them properly I found out how these headphones should actually sound.

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Yep. The reason you buy them is that the higher impedance gives better tonal clarity and more precise response… when driven with adequate power. They sound awesome when driven correctly, and much less awesome when underdriven.

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