Al Krow
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I guess I don't worry as much as you about these things, as it's never been an issue for us to date. Our lovely KZ ZARs (£30 from Ali Express) getting trodden on / lost, on the other hand, seems to be a more regular occurrence! But given they cost no more than a set of bass strings, I'm pretty relaxed and, let's be honest, I lack anything close to your expertise to do anything about it anyway!! -
Thanks Woody. Amusingly I have the exact same red-white dual TS -> single stereo TRS jack adaptor, which I use to feed Spotify tracks to the desk from my PC at home (or phone at a gig between sets), into the stereo input of the CQ-18T. Makes sense that you can use the exact same bit of kit to combine two balanced mono aux outs -> stereo jack of your IEM. Obviously plugging directly in a single stereo TRS headphone out achieves the same thing and we are fortunate to have two of those on the CQ-18T. I've actually got a couple of those silver 1/4" -> 3.5mm TRS jacks (in my pic on the previous page of this thread) and will make those the default for us where we are using single Aux-Out balanced mono -> stereo TRS IEM jack. (In fact, just ordered an extra few spares, because they don't last forever! In case useful for anyone else - you can get 3 from Kenable for under £4 inc. P&P) As @Phil Starr has rightly pointed out, and which completely ties in with my own experience from a full year of gigging with the A&H CQ18T, many desk aux-outs should easily be able to provide enough output for headphone users to directly plug into the desk and hear themselves clearly and easily. If yours doesn't, you may need the assistance of a headphone amp (like the Behringer P2). But best practice when plugging a stereo IEM jack directly into an Aux balanced-out, to avoid phasing and other issues, is to use one of those Kenable-type TS -> TRS convertors. Right I think that's me sorted! Really appreciate, as ever, the BC collective-wisdom on this and I now understand a bit better why our current setup has been working so well, particularly when old rules applying to older tech might caution against! Back to the fretboard...
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Thanks Woody - the TRS to TRS is simply a 1/4" to 3.5mm TRS adaptor - please see the pic in my last but one post (bottom of previous thread page). Seems to make no difference using that vs using a TS a TRS adaptor - but that may just be us not being overly impacted by the phase issue? I think what you're saying is best practice would be to use the TS to TRS adaptor (the silver one in the same pic)? And what this discussion has also made me realise is that if we want to transition to getting stereo for our IEMs e.g. with the Swiff WX520 - the A&H CQ-18T has two stereo headphone outs that could be assigned to providing this for two members of the band. We then have a further 6 balanced mono outs, some of which can be paired to provide additional stereo IEM feeds for those that want it (obviously not an option for the Xvive U4 users). That's definitely an additional worthwhile take-away from this chat!
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Thanks Tim. Makes sense! I've had at a look at the manual reference and the two Alt Out sockets are for the CQ-20B model only (not present on my model the CQ-18T). "Listen mode" simply changes the mix to be some as FoH (ie sourced from Main LR). It won't change the nature of the Alt out from being balanced TRS to stereo TRS though, which is the point we seem to have moved on to. Although the manual is does seem to imply that using balanced TRS with IEM systems is fine. If it makes an "in principle" difference, I guess it would be best practice to be using the silver TS to TRS adapters as standard rather than the gold TRS to TRS adapters (per pic at bottom of previous page)? And this is a more general point? Those plugging their 1/4" stereo jacks from their wireless IEMs (eg Swiff WX520) into a single balanced mono aux-out jack will just have to take what they get! @Woodinblack be good to get your trained electrical engineering hat on this!
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Hmmm... We've got balanced mono aux outputs as previously noted. We've got and used a 1/4" TS to 3.5mm TRS adapter jacks (the lower silver jack in pic) to allow us to plug in to the desk to deal with the issues that Woody mentioned. What stumps me though is why we're getting equally good results with 1/4" TRS to 3.5mm TRS stereo adapters (upper jack), with standard IEM headphones with standard 3.5mm TRS jacks?! So we're using either without issue.
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Thanks Woody. But that's an additional point to amplification though? And would on the face of it apply to any IEM whether wired or wireless being fed into an aux-out? I see that the 6 aux-outs of the Beheringer XAir XR18 are all 3 pin XLR - so no possibility of putting a normal headphone jack into those sockets, plus one headphone out? The aux out sockets on the CQ18 are balanced mono, and I remember you saying that most aux outs are similarly mono? Now the Xvive U4s we used are also mono - so I guess that deals with any phasing issues for those particular devices? But given what you're saying, that then leaves the question as to why we or anyone gets a clear feed into stereo IEM headphones where the balanced mono of an aux output is being matched with an unbalanced stereo jack?
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Thanks Phil, helpful as always! But, if what you say is correct (and I don't doubt that it is for a second!), that's making me think that the various earlier comments of: "you should never put an IEM cable into a line-level aux-out, without a headphone amp" as being an over-cautious old wives tale?
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Tim - that's super helpful, thanks. I'll need to go back and check what settings we currently have for the aux-outs and what difference it's making. I can then make sure we have dedicated wireless (with transmitter amps) and wired (no external amps) aux-outs, if required, or simply leave as is if it's just a case of the "select listen" option impacting the inherent desk output levels for the IEMs, given none of our existing output levels are close to being maxed. But it seems to me that this provides a "best-of-both worlds" option, avoiding unnecessary expenditure on external IEM amps for wired IEMs, which is an unexpected additional cap-feather in it's already significant haul for the CQ range. Bravo A&H!
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I appreciate you have somewhat unusual and sometimes challenging circumstances to deal with Woody 😅
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Your best (and worst!) bass gear purchases of 2025?
Al Krow replied to Al Krow's topic in General Discussion
I was kinda wondering whether any of this (other than the MB rig in the corner) could properly be regarded as "bass gear"? Well there's maybe an argument that there's a kick drum in there... 😅 -
I was a little worried from the some of the comments above that plugging a headphone into a line-level aux-out could somehow cause damage to the desk circuitry. But seems from my online research I can rest easy on that score, as the only issue is likely to be insufficient volume in the IEM ear pieces if the signal has not been subsequently amplified? (Which, as noted above, doesn't seem to be a concern with the A&H CQ desks).
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@uk_lefty I guess there's often going to be a bit of steep learning curve initially with a new multi-fx. I think having got mine after getting up to speed on the GT1000 Core, it was very familiar territory for me. Picking up your Qs in turn: 1. There's two main 'global' fx banks: "preset" and "user" - you should obvs feel at liberty to overwrite any in the user bank and order them how you like there. 2. The PEQ block is my starting point for EQ and you can select what frequencies you want to cut / boost - so for me a low cut combined with a +3db boost at 125Hz works well for a meaty low end that's not boomy. 3. Recommend spending a bit of time getting up to speed on out how to assign controls to select what parameter of which effect block you want to trigger. This opens up so many fab possibilities. What you're looking to do to get Channel 1 with an option to "mix in" channel 2 would simply require you to e.g. assign Cntrl 1 --> divide block to switch it from operating as single-path (A) to dual-path. I'm particularly liking using the expression pedal to smoothly increase the gain on an amp block to go from mild overdrive to fuzz, whilst simultaneously reducing the output level so the patch level stays constant. All done by parameter assignment. It's a very powerful tool at your disposal! 4. I'm not using a vast number of effects - 8 or so including pitch shift. So it's not difficult to scroll through with the up/down foot buttons. For most patches I have it set it 'clean' on one parallel path and my particular fx on the other path which I trigger using the Ctrl button. And then variations of an fx patch (e.g. tremolo rate or amount of drive) using the expression pedal. I've also got a couple of pitch shift patches set to +1/-1 semi as the patch options and +2/-2 semis, plus separate ones for octavers ("poly octave" for octave down and "overtone" for octave up). Hope that helps. Good luck!
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Kudos to you for taking the trouble to read the the A&H desk manual. Only additional comments from me are that: - this desk is very much geared to live gigging bands (they wouldn't have bothered with super nice touches like real time feedback elimination assistance otherwise, I suspect?) - and that A&H are a very reputable manufacturer, who aren't particularly associated with cutting corners.
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I guess because it just works? Flawlessly. For the 70+ gigs that we've used the A&H CQ18T desk since getting it. At each gig we've had one or two band members using a wired IEM straight into the aux outs (with no separate external headphone amp), and with the desk output levels being set for them no higher than for the wireless IEMs. Just to make sure I'm not losing the plot, I've just tried the desk with my home over-ear headphones and no external headphone amp. Could very clearly hear recorded output at similar volumes for both the headphone-out and aux-out with similar output levels on both. Go figure 😅
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"Normal Aux sends and just passive outputs that you can’t expect to plug headphones in to and hear anything." That's where I'm getting confused: there's nothing stopping anyone plugging their wired/passive IEMs directly into the monitor outs on the A&H CQ desk. Its built in preamps provide plenty of headroom, and I'm assuming the A&H CQ desk is not unusual in having preamps?
