New headphone practise amp idea?

I have a Cafe Walter HA-1 that is simply fantastic and a pair of good headphones. Can't beat it. The Cafe Walter is clean and does not color the sound in any way. You really hear what the sound the bass is making... worts and all.
There are others in the market. I'm not sure what a Blue Tooth arrangement would get for you, unless you're into dancing around as you practice. One of those Hotone Thunder Bass amps would probably be very good. Really, it's about practicing and getting the chops together, anything that sounds decent would do the job. All you really need is a few watts of power, and an auxiliary input.

 

Well, first off, sometimes it takes a little extra time to achieve your desired results.
I used the Rockman Bass Ace for a few months. Quality was mediocre at best. Simple set up,
Plug bass in, plug in your input from PC, laptop or phone and play on.
I dropped that set up and simply used my actual practice or performance amp.
I plug the 1/8" cable from the phone or laptop into the amp 'Aux-Input' jack and use head phones.
Great quality.

One is a craiglist find, an Ampeg BA108 practice amp and the other Ampeg PF-500
Surprisingly the BA108 is better to use than the 10x more expensive PF-500 for headphone practice.
It has a separate channel for the Aux-input and a separate volume control for the Aux input,
whereas the PF-500 runs it all through one channel so you have adjust your input volume at the source rather than the amp. An important factor is, use good headphones.

Warning: the PF-500 does not cancel out your speakers with headphone use, you have to unplug the speaker cable.
Also,

PF-500 - $425
Rockman Bass ace - $80
BA 108 - $40​

Oddly the cheapest one does the best job for headphone use.

 

I've used the iRig's, a USB interface to sync with my computer, and the best sounding setup I've come up with so far is using a compact mixing board. Sure it's bigger than most things out there and it has cables, but it's been the easiest I've worked with.

I hate fighting technology and a mixer is about as simple as it gets. Personally, I want nothing to do with any kind of phone, tablet, or computer based interfaced. The iRig stuff just pissed me off even though it looks simple on paper. By using the mixer I can take the XLR out from the DI on my pedal board and get exactly the tone I want (which would normally run to the FOH) and mix it with the music I'm practicing to.

Once you start throwing wireless into the mix it either gets complicated, expensive, or both.

 

Why do people worry so much about making stuff so simple? If you can’t be bothered..... then don’t practice. My practice rig is my (active) bass direct into an alesis multimix. iPhone music into channel 2. Combo plug takes the dual 1/4” outs and sums them to an 1/8” jack that I plug my headphones into. I don’t care that my tone isn’t my ideal. I don’t care that I can’t cavort about the room like a fledgling gazelle. I learn my parts. Done.

 

I was going to suggest the same thing. I've been using one at my desk for headphone practice for a few months now. Works pretty well. I send the line output from the amp into the computer, so I can play along with anything I have in mp3 or anything online. You could also go the other way around and send from the comp to the aux in of the amp, but this works better for my needs.

In terms of convenience, everything stays plugged in all the time except the bass. Only takes a few seconds to plug one in, turn the amp on and go.

As a bonus I can hook my cable end through the little roll bars on the side of the amp so it doesn't get lost when I'm not using it. The gap between the bar and the amp is just big enough to let the wire go through, but not the plug.

 

I agree with you here. All you need is an easy setup that correctly mixes your bass and the music you are practicing to. Tone is all subjective anyways. That's why I use a mixer and take the headphone out to my IEM's.

To the OP of this thread, I think the convenience of cables is well worth it over trying to figure out how to work a wireless everything setup into one package. It's cool to think about, but the execution is going to be difficult. Not to mention that I don't want anything that runs on batteries besides the preamp in my bass and whatever I use to play my music. It's one more thing to go wrong in the whole chain vs having a cable going from A to B.

 

I use a Phil Jones Bighead, simply the best I’ve used. It’s not wireless, but that’s no biggie. I’d rather plug in a couple of cords that fiddle endlessly with a Bluetooth connection.

 

This what I use. Very high quality and flexible I/O.

 

Roland Go:Mixer
Roland Go:Mixer Pro
Palmer Pocket Bass Amp
TC Electronic Bass Fly Rig

There are a lot of good options...

 

Vox amplug or Ampeg BA108. Both sound pretty good and both are pretty easy to use. I could get much more complicated if I wanted, but these two work fine. YMMV...obviously.

 

If your bass is active , just get a Mono to Stereo 1/4 adaptor and plug your headphone directly in your bass.

Good enough if you don't need it to be Uber loud


https://www.amazon.ca/kenable-6-35m...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B003OSVOBO

 

Bluetooth isnt really a goofd option due to latency and wireless is pretty expensive. I personally really dug my Phil Jones Bass Buddy pre/di for practice with headphones as it had a solid one knob compressor and a 5 band eq on board itsounded excellent could work on a pair of 9 volt batteries .Had a excellent di for recording or going direct to the pa live for ampless setup and also could power a 10 watt practice cab as a amp head if you want. I could see pairing that with a xvive wireless being pretty excellent.

 

I recently used the headphone out + aux in on a Fender Rumble 100 and was surprised how good it sounds.
This was for learning a song from a CD.

Folks rave about the old SWR headphone amp but it didn't work well for me.
I wonder how much headphone impedance matters.
I'm using Sony MDR 7506

 

I've tried:

Vox - works, but gets tangled/bumped when used on a bass with a input on the bottom edge - but it's small and allows me to practice on the bass(s) I have stashed at sites I travel to.

The Rumble 25 - works well as Jim C noted - but that amp has moved on in an upgrade trade - (I would snag a Rumble 100 if one crossed my path..DI feature not on the 25)

The Roland Micro Cube Lots of features, battery powered for when I play bass at a acoustic guitar jam that allows for very modestly amped bass play, headphone practice and does not take up much room when I want to bring a bass on a road trip. Not a low cost solution given you can pick up 4-5 used Rumble 25s (or the equivalent) for what a new one will set you back...

So I guess it depends on your situation and your budget. As long as your amp/system has a headphone out and Aux in (very helpful when using a drum beat like Drum Beats+) provided the solution does not need to fit in your pocket or something smaller than a cigar box.

I've found that being able to quickly turn dead time (on hold for 30 minutes with support/reservations/"customer service") in to playing time helpful as a new bass player (correction - someone who owns bass guitars and gear and can make sounds come out..)

And I am still looking for suggestions and following this thread...

 

been using the headphone amp in my DSM OmniCabSim recently for headphone practice. Works and sounds great, I love that it sounds like a cab in a room, and not a flat mono bass signal.

As a bonus, its one of the coolest pedals around for tone shaping.

 

I also use the Phil Jones Bighead, I was shocked at the cost, but the more I use it the more I love it, I practice about every day with it, small and lightweight and with its own rechargeable battery, my computer is hooked up to it most of the time for practice, if it had a blue tooth setup on it I think it would be the most perfect Portable Practice Headphone Amp , my wife made a strap/pouch to attach to my Bass Strap, I am researching on how to set up a blue tooth attachment on it to link either my phone or Tablet or PC .

 

I’m actually quite happy that Bluetooth isn’t a feature. I just like to plug in and play.

 

Found the Bluetooth attachment to try out, wonder if they would also work on Headphones tuning them into a wireless set, Amazon sells them for $15 bucks, might also work an amps with headphone jack 3.5mm
https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetoo...ncoding=UTF8&refRID=M7DZA3BA7QZ1WG22HEZX&th=1

They also have a Receiver and or Transmitter, Technology is getting better and better

https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetoo..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=R43JF564W8YXHEET449B

 

I like your idea if it would work. I use the korg mini pandora. I use velcro to stick it to the bottom of my strap then a short cord to the bass. Still have to connect the headphones and then the aux input (iphone etc). It’s a lot of wiresand it’s sort of a hassle but the outcome is good and everything works. It’d be nice if at least the phone connection was wireless somehow.