Belt clip monitor?

[Happy Face]

I would love to have the equivalent of the belt clip gizmo you use for a wireless mike or bass, but with a headphone out and a simple pass through. No wireless. Now, Rolls has those nice personal monitors, but they clip on your mike stand.  I get all tangled up in the cords.

I did a quick look and didn't find anything that simple. Clip it on your belt, plug your bass into it, plug a cord into the passthrough on into your amp and one or two ear buds into it.voila - you  can always hear yourself in one ear

I'm too old to keep explaining to idiots that it is impossible to hear yourself over a loud drummer if you are asked to run your 200 watt amp on 1. Last night I was so pissed off that I turned my stage volume down to zero until the drummer complained. 
 

[Pilgrim]

Hmmm...sounds like what you're looking for is essentially an inline monitor with a pass-through for the signal and a monitor jack...or a preamp with a monitor jack that sends the amplified signal on to the amp.

#2 sounds more likely to me - there's not that much signal coming out of a bass jack, and there needs to be a reason to put electronics in the signal path.  A preamp would be one reason to put a device in the signal chain. 

But wait!....that might also be something you'd find in a wireless setup - the transmitter might have a headphone jack.

B&H Photo has a number of wireless systems ranging from $75 up...it also strikes me that using a wireless headphone might let you tune into the frequency that's being used to send the signal.

One possibility is this - the specs mention that you can send the signal to specific wireless headphones: "The audio signal can also be sent to Wi Digital System's optional Wi Studio-M digital wireless headphones, model JM-WHM01, for a high quality wireless monitoring experience."

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/766504-REG/Jangus_JM_WAL35_Wi_AudioLink_Professional_Stereo.html

I only spent a couple of minutes reading this, but if the price tag fits, it might be worth studying.

[Happy Face]

Thanks Pilgrim! I had not thought to check B&H. That's closer, but still more complicated than I'd hoped. I am going to see if I can find someone local to build me a simple unit.

Really just two parallel phono jacks (in & out) with a small headphone amp and jack. That should be possible?   

[Granny Gremlin]

That would be easy enough to DIY.  A couple jacks, maybe a 1:1 transformer to use as a splitter/isolation for the passthrough if required (probably a good idea) and one of them cheap class D amps - you can get matchbook-sized boards for $10 and run them off a 9 volt all weekend (recently used one to make a powered stereo speaker/boombox thing for my ipod).  Throw it all in a box and you're off.

There's also lots of very basic DIY instructions for headphone amps online, using e.g. altoids tins as the chassis.  These days I think one of those prefab boards is a better option - they don't sound too bad either and they're insanely tiny/efficient so little heat generated.

[Happy Face]

Thanks Granny! I actually went over to PartsExpress and found a headphone amp board and looked it over. It's doable, as you say. But first I want to find out if the newish belt-mounted personal monitor from Rolls might work.

The issue is that it appears the outs are line level. Maybe I cd use the XLR out with an adapter?

I asked on their helpline but no one has bothered to reply yet.   

[Granny Gremlin]

The outs on the headphone amp are line level?  weird.  Or did you mean the parallel out?

You can get a cheap 1:1 transformer (a couple bucks; the local surplus store near me has tiny ones that are fine for something as low level as instrument signal for stupid cheap - no need to get one of those larger 'hifi' ones for $70 a pop) to split the bass out put to the amp and a parallel out jack.  If you do use a cheaper tranny for this use the isolated output for the amp and the direct out for the parallel to amp jack.  That would work fine with this paroduct from PE:

http://www.parts-express.com/stereo-2-x-150mw-class-ab-lm4881-headphone-amplifier-board--320-321

Yes, the input is -10dBV stereo (consumer line level) but that is actually really similar to instrument level.  It would be safe enough, but if you were worried you could switch out the 1:1 tranny for a more appropriate ratio (not sure what that would be off the top of me head). The main issue with that board is the lack of volume or input gain control (2 settings low and hi only - might be OK, but you'd have to try it and see).

The Rolls (model PM50s) is almost what you need except it's all mic level in and out - you'd need to add 2 DIs (or similar level conversion devices) to use that properly (though depending on the circuit, you could be OK with just TS to XLR "winkies" if the amp is robust enough).  Generic (not name brand) in line transformer-based hi to lo Z (and vice versa) converters (like a passive DI) can be had for about $7 here so that's not a bad option (by contrast you'd pay about 40-60 for a Shure or Switchcraft one; Hosa is a bit cheaper at around 20-30).

[Happy Face]

Wow! There's a wealth of info! Thanks!!

I think I'll just try a Y-jack with a Rolls DB325. Use the latter simply to run the headphones.

Or perhaps the output signal will not be too hot. I'm reluctant to blow out one of my amps.

We'll see....

[Happy Face]

Wow! There's a wealth of info! Thanks!!

I think I'll just try a Y-jack with a Rolls DB325. Use the latter simply to run the headphones.

Or perhaps the output signal will not be too hot. I'm reluctant to blow out one of my amps.

We'll see....

The minijack output is not loud enough. You can hear through the headphones but just barely.

So I'll try one of those headphone practice amp thingys off a Y jack.

[patman]

for our stage setup, I use a hardwired shure belt pack...does the job really well.