Re: Monitor out noise
Acknowledgement for the extraordinary console for the price the X32 is, and that it does many, many things remarkably well (as you point out) has nothing to do with the fact that my console has gone up to the service center and returned still with the noise in the headphones for which it went in. If you can spare an output to feed a headphone amp and then your headphones, congratulations for your ingenuity, you are truly a gifted one. I don't plan on carrying an extra headphone amp to make up for something as basic as headphone monitoring that can be had in a $40 analog console made by Behringer too.
You wrote: "Short version: You cannot fix this. Maybe the Behringer Service Center can, and maybe it can't."
By writing "..and maybe it can't" you seemed to know that maybe this is not a fixable problem, given what you wrote, I politely asked my question as you seemed to maybe have info I didn't, but forget that...
My apologies for inferring from the way your two sentences were worded, along with the surplus of question marks, that you were preparing to go on a rant if the answers to your polite questions were "yes".
You replied in a sub-thread about "Monitor out noise", and I assumed that's what you were talking about, not the headphone out noise. Those could be different things, and certainly are in regard to the connectors used. I was speaking specifically about the XLR'd Monitor Outs, and did not intend to imply that I'm hauling anything around to be used for headphones. That is a separate problem.
I also had no way to know that you sent your console to a Service Center to fix a specific headphone output noise problem, and that it came back unfixed. You have more knowledge than I about whether the problem can be fixed or not; so far, the answer seems to be "no".
You do add a data point to the discussion, though; you are now the first person to say that Behringer Service had an opportunity to fix that specific problem, but didn't. And as I wrote in my reply to you,
"Further, since I've been following this issue, I am not aware of anyone who has reported having this problem with their console subsequently reporting that the problem has been solved. I am not omnicient, though, and may have missed something."
That statement is still apparently true. Since writing it, I remembered that one infrequent poster wrote that his console didn't have the problem, but has not replied to my subsequent specific questions about how he knows that.
I allege that, based on the small sample I've personally seen and on reports in this thread, every console has the problem, but that some people are not bothered by it because of either their methods of working or limitations in their hearing*. I will be happy to be contradicted, but will want specific answers to how someone feels they can prove the absence of a problem. FFT traces will work, RTA not so much.
Further, I will happily state that if headphone noise at max volume is the worst problem this console has, I am not at all bothered or concerned by it. Life is sometimes a bitch.
Fake edit: If the workaround on the monitor out (putting it on any of the other 16 analog outs) didn't exist, I would be very, very exercised about this, because that would prohibit use as a monitor console. On headphones at max volume only, I'm not exercised so much, because that implies use in a noisy environment, which masks this HF noise for me.
*I keep making the point about hearing limitations because I have 16 LED lights which are otherwise wonderful, but when their internal fan kicks into medium speed, they put out a mechanical 8kHz tone that drove us crazy. The fascinating thing was that we had to do 4 shows with some major acts before we could fix it, and not one musician complained about it or even noticed it. When we showed the problem to the promoters of the events, they couldn't hear it, either, even with an otherwise dead-silent stage. I would classify those people as music connoisseurs and very, very knowledgeable, but they have a hearing limitation that obviously does not affect their enjoyment of music or their interpersonal verbal communications.
People are different; after the above experience, I don't expect other people to hear what I can hear, and I know my hearing above 10kHz or so drops off significantly compared with what younger people can hear. Shrug.
And to conclude what I hope is NOT coming across as a rant, I'll remind the world that in an earlier reply in this thread about this issue, I half-seriously offered to come to Behringer Service to help them figure out why they are not observing this noise as a problem. That offer still stands, especially in light of your experience. I've never been to Las Vegas...
~:-D~:grin:
