Rolls Headphone Tap

GreyWyvern

Well-Known Member
Is anyone familiar with the Rolls headphone tap (as found here?)

Has anyone had any experience with them? Are they any good? Should I get one or two just to try it out?
 
It's a cheap way to use headphones instead of a wedge. I know some drummers who use it. I have no problem with it, except that there is no protection should there be anything extremely loud, etc.

Also, I don't think you can loop out of it to continue the same mix to another wedge...could be wrong, I haven't seen one in a while.

If it fits your need, go for it!
 
Err I have issues with anything that takes a speaker connection on a jack. They say you can loop from it, and it does have 2 jacks. It's 150 ohms impedance, so shouldn't do too much for your amp loadings...
 
To answer your question, I have never used one.

If your not on the cheap, you could do it differently.

It would be a little more intricate, but you could do that with a direct box, such as this inexpensive one here, and headphone amp, such as this inexpensive one here.

The downside is that both of these require power, and it is a little more expensive. The upside is that you get two pieces of gear that can be used for alot of things, instead of one piece of gear that does one thing.
 
This is being looked at as a very inexpensive alternative to an IEM system. I don't have the money for Aviom and I won't settle for HearBack, plus HearBack doesn't really meet our needs. The goal is to cut down on stage volume.
 
Your idea works.

If you have an extra aux send on your mixer, you could send your headphones signal straight from the board, and then use the headphone amp shown above. They also make battery powered headphone amps.

How many people on stage will be using headphones? You could assign an aux send to each performer if you like. If you do that, each person can have their own mix. You would need an aux for each different mix.

If you already have and existing speaker cable plant for each monitor, then the tap would be the easiest solution.

BTW, the HearBack is awesome.
 
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Your idea works.

If you have an extra aux send on your mixer, you could send your headphones signal straight from the board, and then use the headphone amp shown above. They also make battery powered headphone amps.

How many people on stage will be using headphones? You could assign an aux send to each performer if you like. If you do that, each person can have their own mix. You would need an aux for each different mix.

If you already have and existing speaker cable plant for each monitor, then the tap would be the easiest solution.

BTW, the HearBack is awesome.

You might even be able to get away without the amp if you crank the aux's high enough, but you might start clipping out. You can try it, just stick your headphones in the aux out and play some music, see if you can get it loud enough (remember that the performer will be on a loud stage, and his/her hearing might not be as good as yours) without driving your board ridiculously high.
 
You might even be able to get away without the amp if you crank the aux's high enough, but you might start clipping out. You can try it, just stick your headphones in the aux out and play some music, see if you can get it loud enough (remember that the performer will be on a loud stage, and his/her hearing might not be as good as yours) without driving your board ridiculously high.

I can't say that I'd be recommending this. If something went wrong, I'd rather it were a headphone amp than potentially causing collateral damage inside the console. The other issue would be if you had a balanced output, it would be driving the ears out of phase, but this isn't actually an issue with headphones or IEM as the two signals don't mix. The low impedance of headphones is what would really cause the issues for the console, and is where a headphone amp creates a buffer and is designed to give that power.

Noting that use of this tap does require one to have a power amp of at least 10 watts to drive it, if you were looking to loop an IEM off an existing amplified wedge send it should do what you want. Otherwise would you need to factor in the cost of an amp?
 
.....
BTW, the HearBack is awesome.

Have you ever seen Aviom? It makes HearBack look like Radio Shack [size=-2](<--sorry about the bad language!)[/size] crap! It is ok if you have no more than, say, a couple vocals, a guitar, keys, a bass, and mics on the kick and snare.

.....
Noting that use of this tap does require one to have a power amp of at least 10 watts to drive it, if you were looking to loop an IEM off an existing amplified wedge send it should do what you want. Otherwise would you need to factor in the cost of an amp?

I am looking at this to replace wedges. I already have amps and wedges taking care of my several mixes.

I think I am going to get a couple of these to give them a shot. Since they are so inexpensive, why not!

Thanks for the input. I'll give an update, when I have a chance to try them out.
 
I have sold three of the Rolls PM52 in the recent pass. I have not heard of any issues with them. Though it is not a prefered location to tap a headset. If possible get your headset amp connection upstream to the preamps.
joe
 

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