Help using Headphones please

[imangelanjo]

Hi

I'm planning on buying a basic audio kit of NTG-2 and beachtek DXA-2s or DXA-4(whatevers cheap or better) but I realized that what about monitoring the sounds? I know that plugging in a Mic directly to the cam is bad because it will produce some weird sounds but here my noob question, is it the same for headphones? I mean will I be hearing bad audio too if I plug it directly to the camcorder?

I'm using a Canon HG20
So heres the list of my noob questions:
1) Is it better if I don't plug in the HEadphones directly to the camcorder?
2) If answer above is yes, how will I do that? Do I need some sort of mixer?


Thanks


http://www.labtec.com/index.cfm/gear/details/AMR/EN,crid=8,contentid=685,crid2=9

 

[Cassius]

That's what the AV plug is for, assuming you have one on that camera. Otherwise, does the Beachtek have a monitoring port?

 

[SMuir]

If you're recording audio on the camcorder, then you should be plugging your headphones into the camera's headphone output. If, on the other hand, you're recording double-system sound (eg. video on the camera, audio on a compact flash recorder) then you should by all means be plugging your headphones into the recorder rather than the camera.

Always monitor your audio from the the recording device. Monitoring a mixer's output will only tell you that the mixer's output sounds good, and really tells you nothing about the actual recording.

Many production mixers have a "headphone return" that allow you to run the camera's monitoring output directly into the mixer's headphone output.

So to answer your question: you could very well hear bad audio if you plug your headphones directly into the camcorder, but only if you're about to record bad audio. Your camera's headphone output will likely prove a bit more noisier (eg. a subtle hiss) than a mixer's headphone output, but that's a small tradeoff for the peace of mind of knowing exactly what your recording.

 

[Jokerswild]

I know on my Canon XH-A1 when I have the headphones plugged in, I can monitor the audio and increase the "headphone" (not levels) volume, from the camera. BUT, I am always uneasy when I crank up the headphone audio and hear hiss, whether it is coming from the sound or me just cranking up the volume of the headphones..Is there any better way to resolve this so I am sure my audio is ok?

 

[SMuir]

I am always uneasy when I crank up the headphone audio and hear hiss, whether it is coming from the sound or me just cranking up the volume of the headphones..Is there any better way to resolve this so I am sure my audio is ok?

There are a couple of ways you can work around noisy headphone preamps. The simplest would be to train your ears to recognize the noise of the camera's headphone preamp: after you set the headphone levels for the day (using reference tone or some other objective standard), listen to the noise produced by the headphones when there's no program audio running through them (eg. the camera's in playback mode, but playback is paused). If the noise level increases when you run program audio through those headphones, then you know that you're dealing with another issue in your recording chain.

A second solution would be to use a higher-quality headphone preamp. If you're camera has an audio line output, then you can simply plug that into a separate headphone preamp. Even a good DIY altoids tin headphone preamp will often sound better than the tiny bargain-bin affairs built into camcorders. Alternately, you can use the line output to drive a mixer's headphone return.