Consumer Electronics introduced
ART HeadTap Headphone Amp
- Passive operation
- Connects to PA or monitor amplifier
- Volume control regulates headphone output Internal resistors protect the phones
- Protects the amplifier low impedance loads
- Connects to headphone amps to provide extra monitoring capability in studios
Sometimes floor monitors are a problem. There isn’t enough room for them onstage or someone sits in and can’t hear the monitors or the drummer can’t hear them well enough. Or perhaps it’s a pick-up gig or a rehearsal and you didn’t have enough time to set them up. In any case, sometimes it would be preferable just to put on headphones and somehow connect them to the PA. That’s where a headphone tap comes in. The HeadTAP is a passive device with an input to connect the PA or monitor amplifier and an output to connect the headphones. A volume control regulates the headphone level and internal resistors keep the unit’s impedance high enough to protect the headphones. It also protects the amplifier from encountering too low a load impedance while powering tap units, the speaker system or several tap units by themselves. The HeadTAP will also work with a stereo headphone amplifier for use in recording situations when you want to add headphones for additional performers. Specifications: • Input Level: Stereo/mono input selector button • Power Requirements: Passive • Output Jack: Dual 1/4″ stereo/mono headphone jacks • Instrument Input: Dual parallel 1/4″ stereo/mono input jacks • Dimensions: 3.75″ x 2.875″ x 1.5″ (95 x 74 x 40 mm).
Rating: 
(out of 1 reviews)
List Price: $ 65.00
Price: $ 38.99
Review by Patrick Gleason for ART HeadTap Headphone Amp
Rating:
As a drummer for a church worship band, I wanted the ability to incorporate a click track to add some consistency to our songs, and in order to do that, I needed to be able to use isolation, in-ears headphones. The biggest obstacle to this was in getting a line-level monitor feed, and according to my sound man, this was not possible. (note: it probably was possible – he simply wasn’t willing to be helpful)
So what to do? I picked up the ART HeadTap, which enables me to take a speaker level feed and attenuate it to a line-level/headphone level, which can then be run into a small drum-side mixer so that I mix it with my click track. It’s a passive unit so you don’t need a DC power adapter or batteries.
So, the good:
As advertised, as long as I can convert the speaker level feed to a 1/4″ male jack, I can take just about any feed from a speaker, monitor, or even directly from the power amp. When I’m at rehearsal, I plug directly into the back of the power amp with a Speakon to 1/4″ female adapter, and I run a piece of 25′ speaker cable into the ART HeadTap. At church, I run the same Speakon adapter and 25′ cable into the parallel of my bass player’s floor wedge monitor which takes the channel 4 monitor feed – the one we share. I get a nice clear, balanced signal which I then run into my mixer. (Note – if you weren’t interested in mixing in a click track and only wanted in-ears, it is possible to plug headphones directly into the ART HeadTap. Running it into a mixer gives me a bit more control over the EQ of the sound as well as the level.)
The not so good:
The level knob on the HeadTap works, but there isn’t much headroom there and the signal is pretty loud. This means that you don’t have a lot of room to adjust the signal and it goes from being inaudible to almost being too loud with just a small adjustment of the knob. The HeadTap also won’t protect you if something spikes the sound level and hits you with a lot of volume or feedback. It’s for these 2 reasons that I only gave the review a 4 out of 5 – otherwise the unit works as advertised.
I’ve added another piece in my chain by adding a small compressor (the FMR RNC compressor) which serves the dual purpose of protecting my ears against sound level spikes and it also allows me to do some gain reduction.
So, in an ideal world, the sound man would have just given me what I needed, but with the ART HeadTap on my drumside in-ears/click track rig, it has given me the flexibility to use in-ears with my drums just about anywhere I play – as long as there is any kind of monitor feed headed my way, speaker-level or line-level, I’m good to go.
There are some more expensive units you could pick up that do similar tasks, but you really don’t need anything more – this gets the job done almost perfectly – the only thing that would make it better is if it allowed for a bit better control over the volume of the output signal. I would buy this product again if it happens to break – for $40 (as opposed to $150+ for the Countryman DT85, which is undoubtedly a superior product) it’s kind of a no-brainer.