hi everyone, i love my s4 but i don’t love the sound quality coming through the headphones when cueing compared to the quality of a DJM-600 mixer. I heard a pre-amp would be my best solution, I’m currently looking at
what is it that you dont like about the sound quality, ive used a friends s4 a few times and think its brilliant quality, like you’d expect with something of that price… what headphones are you using?
Only thing headphone amp will add to your setup is VOLUME .. the input signal will technically be the same as your s4’s output, you just may not have to drive it as hard depending on the headphones into the mixer :-S
They are apparently pretty decent for increasing the volume without compromising on Sound quality .. earlier models not so good.
I reckon would prob sound better than the behringer … but to be honest you might be better off just going with an Audio2 or different sound card if you aren’t using the inputs, but supposedly the audio2 is same card as the s4.
Hmmm…one of the s4 peeps I’m sure will tell you for sure, but are you using the S4 USB bus powered or power adaptor ?
Sure I read that the headphone volume reduces if used without an adaptor?
On a sidenote, does everything sound “unclear” even at lower levels ? … Another idea might be to run the headphone socket to a powered speaker or amplifier to see if it still sounds bad.
Man I think what you got going on is a impedance issue which the MD7506 is a rated at 63 Ohms.
Most DJ headphones I think are below 50 Ohms. The MD-V700’s are rated at 24 Ohms and the Pioneer HDJ-1000 is rated at 40 Ohms.
I also might add the Freq Response on yours are from 10Hz - 20Khz. Most “DJ” ones are from 5Hz - 30Khz. That being said before you get a headphone amp… try out some different headphones. I personally think its the S4 not liking such a high impedance load on it so it doesn’t get driven properly.
Here is the technical explanation of what I think is going on… saves me a ton of typing now.
All I can say the lower the impedance the louder they will be. I’m still using a set V700’s I bought about 9 years ago. The pads have lost their vinyl covering and they feel like felt cloth now… good and broke in!!
Best advice I can give is go to your local music store and take a mp3 player or a good CD and try some out but make sure they are 50 ohms or lower and wear them for 10+ mins to make sure nothing hurts or gets too hot.
I used to use some extremely high impedence headphones. Generally speaking, the nicer the headphones, the higher the impedance. (Mine are around 300 ohms)
Unfortunately, most “audiophile” headphone amps are AT LEAST $150.
I ended up buying a mackie 802-vlz3. It also allowed me to have a separate booth output with adjustable volume and when I was by myself mixing tracks I would just run my headphones through there.
Selling all my stuff so give me a pm if you want mine (I do have it in a f-s thread)… willing to work on price
I seriously doubt its an impedance issue with the phones, this would not cause “bad quality”. Its not all about impended or wattage either, sensitivity plays a huge part as well and the Sonys are sensitive. The 7506’s are certainly not low volume / mid impedance phones (compared with other studio phones like the DT100’s).
I use MDR-V6’s btw which are the same essentially as the 7506’s lacking a gold adaptor and they have never been “low volume” or “bad quality” on anything I ever tried them on … even on my Numark DJ/IO its just slightly lower volume and only in Ableton, Traktor/Torq are loud as hell.
Sounds like a dodgy unit if you ask me … I’d see if you can test someone else’s.
the s4’s headphone out isn’t loud enough. that’s my personal experience.
for awhile, i worked with beyerdynamic studio headphones which were too quiet. i then switched to V700DJs. now volume is acceptable. but still, the V700DJs get way louder on a decent analogue mixer than on the S4.
Have you checked that you haven’t got the master limiter on and the gains too high?
When I had mine the sound was sometimes really limited/compressed through the phones when I was cueing two channels.
Also, it’s irrelevant that the freq response isn’t quite as wide as on some other phones as human hearing is usually only 20Hz-20kHz.
i run mine with limiter on because it gets too distorted if i run with it off.
i can cue ok if the gains on the 2 tracks are low but the problem is, if i cue it like that, the tracks playing on the speaker won’t sound full and rich in quality due to the gains.
my software headphone volume is 100%
i wish the s4 channel gain meter would be a bit better also lol
im hoping i find a solution because i really like the s4. my other alternative is to run a dvs with my cdj/djm combo but i really dont wanna do that
This is your problem then. You shouldn’t be boosting your software gains to make the room move. Just turn your amp up! The sw headphone should be nowhere near 100%, im not surprised you’re finding it hard to cue!
Try turning of the limiter, bringing your master gain to around -5.0dB, turn your headphones in the software down to the default level (around hafway if i remember right), and turn your track gain down in traktor (or turn on autogain). Now you can crank up your amp/speakers to get a nice volume and use the headphone dial on the hardware to get enough volume to cue.
ive been cueing with the software headphone gain at default and it was hard for me me to cue, thats why i had it turned up. I find with the software turned up and the volume knob on the s4 turned down, it was better than default software level with the volume knob cranked up.
my master gain was at -10.1 but now im running master gain @ 0 with -9 headroom setting
i will try limiter off again but that distorts in the headphones for me if i remember correctly
If you’re getting distortion with the limiter off then something is turned up too high. I seem to remember that the limiter affects the cue as well as the master, so if you’re driving the limiter really hard (which it sounds like you are) then the tracks cued in the phones will be squashed together and really hard to listen to. You need to go through the whole signal chain, from channel gain → speaker volume and make sure everything is set for optimum clarity, not volume.
Surprised that no one has mentioned the infamous “loose nut” yet. The nut that is screwed onto the headphone jack was loose for some people… tightening it fixed the sound quality issue.
