OT: line amp?

[Dave Labrecque]

Calling on the studio electronic wizards among us.

My podcast client's home studio needs a little upgrading. The guy who set it up was only quazi-literate as far as studio configuring goes. As a result, because the level of the phones feeding the mixer (it's taken from the headset jack on this two-line VoIP telephone) is way low, he had all the other inputs to the mixer (mics, automation computer) trimmed way low. It works okay, but there's no meter deflection, and the noise floor can't be great, of course. Due to the mixer's channel limitations, the phones are on a stereo line level input, which has no trim control. Anyway -- my thought is to boost the phone's output level so that I can run everything up in the nominal range of the mixer.

Note that budgets are tight, and the caller/receiver lines have very little (if any) crosstalk, since this is all digital, so a POTS type hybrid is unnecessary (and unwanted). It actually sounds pretty good.

I suppose I could investigate the level of the audio feeding the handset to see if I could tap off of that, but I'm assuming it won't be different than what's at the headset jack. Does everyone concur?

So... I think what I need is some kind of simple and inexpensive line amplifier to bring the headset output up 20 or 30 dB (though I haven't checked exactly how much we need).

Any ideas on what to buy would be appreciated.

[Soundguy]

Two thoughts.

If it sounds okay and not noticeably noisy, then it is okay ... so walk away.

What kind of mixer is it? Can you simply put the phones patch into another channel(s) which has gain on the front end?

Do you just want to see meters bouncing to verify that it's working? I have a similar situation at my home studio where I don't want things to be too loud, and sometimes I can hear just fine when the meters are barely showing any indication of signal. When I try to adjust everything as you seem to want to do, it upsets the natural feel of the controls and things become too sensitive and mistakes get made resulting in unpleasant blasts of volume.

Soundguy

[Sound Machine Inc]

RDL STA-1 Stick-On Electronic Transformer/Line Amplifier


right item, not exactly cheap... but it works really well in 2 radio stations I have wired
http://www.performanceaudio.com/buy/...RDL/STA_1/2981

[Craig Allen]

I've used the RDL stuff as well - good stuff for that type of application. But I got to agree with Soundguy - if it's not broke, don't fix it.

[Dave Labrecque]

I've used the RDL stuff as well - good stuff for that type of application. But I got to agree with Soundguy - if it's not broke, don't fix it.

I do appreciate the sentiment, but, as I sort of mentioned, the noise isn't great, so...

[Ian Alexander]

I do appreciate the sentiment, but, as I sort of mentioned, the noise isn't great, so...

To be fair, you said the noise floor can't be great, which I took to mean that you theorized it might be noisy, but hadn't really noticed a problem with it.

If you're looking for ~30dB of gain, maybe a cheap mic pre would do the trick?

[Carl G.]

Calling on the studio electronic wizards among us.

Note that budgets are tight, and the caller/receiver lines have very little (if any) crosstalk, since this is all digital, so a POTS type hybrid is unnecessary (and unwanted). It actually sounds pretty good.

I suppose I could investigate the level of the audio feeding the handset to see if I could tap off of that, but I'm assuming it won't be different than what's at the headset jack. Does everyone concur?

Dave... a POTS type Hybrid is exactly what you need simply because the disparging (VERY normal audio difference). The Hybrid will help tremendously in the balancing the levels as you desire.. then simply "tweak" on the 'console'.

[Dave Labrecque]

Dave... a POTS type Hybrid is exactly what you need simply because the disparging (VERY normal audio difference). The Hybrid will help tremendously in the balancing the levels as you desire.. then simply "tweak" on the 'console'.

Carl,

Not sure what you mean by "disparging", but the phone levels are consistent. Just very low. I don't imagine a hybrid is a good tool to bring levels up. In fact, there's no AGC type circuitry at all in a hybrid, is there? Maybe the nice ones have it? Even so, a hybrid would be looking for a "normal"-ranging input level, not a full-time 20-or-more-dB-low level, right?

[Ian Alexander]

Dave... a POTS type Hybrid is exactly what you need simply because the disparging (VERY normal audio difference). The Hybrid will help tremendously in the balancing the levels as you desire.. then simply "tweak" on the 'console'.

...the caller/receiver lines have very little (if any) crosstalk, since this is all digital, so a POTS type hybrid is unnecessary (and unwanted). It actually sounds pretty good.

Dave may be getting tired of us telling him he's wrong and then correcting us, so I'll assume that I know exactly what he meant and fill in for him.

I think he meant that the VOIP phone already has caller and show host audio separate. You know that you don't hear yourself on a digital cellphone, right? Same thing.

[Dave Labrecque]

Dave may be getting tired of us telling him he's wrong and then correcting us, so I'll assume that I know exactly what he meant and fill in for him.

I think he meant that the VOIP phone already has caller and show host audio separate. You know that you don't hear yourself on a digital cellphone, right? Same thing.

Exactamundo, Ian.

Although, now you got me wondering... you can hear yourself on a VoIP-phone, no? I'd think it'd be weird not to be able to hear yourself. It'd be quite disconcerting. So... why is it that I'm not experiencing that, here? Maybe the headset jack (the source we're using to feed the mixer) doesn't send any caller audio to the earphone?