Practice Headphone Amp

JamieJ

Well-known member
I have been looking for a quiet practice solution for a while and my first attempt is at a DIY option using the MXR headphone amp that @PedalPCB was kind enough to send me a couple of to test out. I added this to the unicab PCB.

The unicab is a brilliant board. I wanted to add a switching jack to be able to use it with my amp as well and not just the headphone amp PCB.

My favourite settings on the unicab are the 2x12 Tweed, 1x12 open backed and the small blues combo setting. I took the picture on my iPhone but for some reason they look really crappy quality, sorry for that.

headphoneamp1.jpg
headphoneamp2.jpg
 
@SillyOctpuss - great so far! It’s great to play at night without the worry of waking the kids. I have only tried stacking with a BD-2 and a zendrive so far and it sounded good with those two. The headphone amp knob is actually a gain control instead of a volume control, so with gainer sounds you can lower the headphone amp gain. I’m only being let down by using it with iPhone headphones. I think with a good pair of head phones it would sound even better.
Thanks @spi and @SYLV9ST9R
 
@SillyOctpuss - great so far! It’s great to play at night without the worry of waking the kids. I have only tried stacking with a BD-2 and a zendrive so far and it sounded good with those two. The headphone amp knob is actually a gain control instead of a volume control, so with gainer sounds you can lower the headphone amp gain. I’m only being let down by using it with iPhone headphones. I think with a good pair of head phones it would sound even better.
Thanks @spi and @SYLV9ST9R

Excellent stuff. Makes sense about the gain/level
 
Cool, would love to see this offered as a single PCB!

edit: I added it to the wish list
I’m currently building a unicab, Mxr headphone amp (GGG), and the 4 channel mixer (GGG) into an enclosure.

Glad to hear these two boards are working well for you.

The mixer I’m adding will allow an auxiliary input and another 1/4 instrument input. Hope to have this done soon. I’d love to see a combo board of all three circuits but the headphone amp and unicab at the least would be awesome
 
forgive me if I missed it somewhere, but which headphone amp board is that? I've been thinking of going this route myself
 
@ADAOCE - that sounds awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing a build report. Having the aux in makes it a much better practice solution.
Boards are done. Gonna do some enclosure drilling and off board wiring this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have a report soon.

These GGG boards are good quality and nice and small but you sacrifice the nice layout that you get with PPCB. I can knock all the resistors and film caps out so quick on PPCB.
 

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Awesome. That gorva enclosure looks so good.

Are you going to omit the foot switch and wire them as always on?

Congratulations on the little one arriving too!
 
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Awesome. That gorva enclosure looks so good.

Are you going to omit the foot switch and wire them as always on?

Congratulations on the little one arriving too!
Thanks man!

Yes I’m wiring it with two mini toggles that allow me to bypass the cab sim and switch from amp to headphones.

Thought about using the cabsim in the loop of the headphone amp but then I can’t use with my amp
 
@JamieJ can you explain the routing scheme here? I have a switched Jack I could use. I’m trying to figure out the best way to setup my bypass and amp switching
 
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