Why are these mixers distorting the output?

I have a little solid state practice amp I like with a headphone out. I want to mix that output together with my computer and go out to my headphones, so I can jam along to some YouTube videos late at night.

I bought a couple inexpensive small format mixers to test out (ROLLS MX51s and ART Power Mix III). Thing is, both distort the output. Using a clean tone, anything past moderate pick attack produces some nasty clipping and distortion. I tried low volume on the amp and high volume on the mixer & vice versa, as well as moderate volume on both.

To rule out my headphones as the culprit, going directly to headphones from the amp's headphones output sounds good - no clipping. The headphones are Beyerdynamic DT-770 PRO 80ohm, for reference.

Again, BOTH the mixers are doing it. Are they shitty? Or am I doing something dumb?

https://i.imgur.com/3ohS6Gy.jpg

are you taking a true line out signal from the amp? Do you know the actual impedance. It must be lower than the input impedance of the mixer but if tis really low and the signal is hot you're going to get distortion for sure, especially in the high end... I think you said the headphone out though? well, that's got an amp in it to drive your headphones. It also has a low output impedance to drive a 20-120ohm load so you are likely sending a hot signal at a very low impedance and therefore NO treble damping into the mixer which is likely a 10kohm load. You probably just need to pad it down 20 dB.… or install a true, passive line out that will not be too hot for the mixer and will give it the impedance its looking for to perform as designed.

Simple job, google search installing a line out in an amp.

If you don't want to mod your amp and you don't have a pad laying around your home studio you can take a little pedal enclosure and build a ghetto pad by taking 2 jacks and 2 resistors and putting them together as a simple voltage divider. If they are the same value you will be attenuating your signal by 50%

https://www.kitronik.co.uk/blog/potential-divider-voltage-divider/

Interesting, thanks. You know, the amp does have a line-out in addition to the headphone-out. When I get home tonight I will try that into the mixer and see how it sounds.

Problem is the line-out doesnt mute the speaker, whereas the headphone-out does. I guess I can get around that by sticking any 1/4" plug into the headphone jack.

I'll report back...

yeah, if the headphone is a switching jack just insert a cable to initiate the switching.. there may be more to it than that. PCB designers get 'clever.'

It's getting weird. I went line-out into the mixer... no sound. Amp continued to sound fine, but sent nothing out of the line-out.

So then I put a random 1/4" plug into the headphone jack, and it muted the amp's speaker, and now suddenly the line-out is working.... but in mono and SUPER quiet. What the hell??

It's an Orange Crush 30R. Here's a link to the manual.

https://i.imgur.com/RiAZFXh.jpg

there's some idiotic switching setup on this amp with switching jacks.... also, when you get your signal to the mixer you're going to lose the tone of the speaker which is 50% of the tone, you're going to hear unpleasant frequencies you're not used which is why people don't plug their amps right into the mixing desk unless its for a weird gimmick sound. I'm not sure what you're up to, whycan't you just play the amp really low. Its solid state and won't sound better cranked up. Why do you need this elaborate mixer setup? If you have to use headphone why not get a cheap used POD or something? What you're doing is kinda goofy, Giulio!

EDIT: I would probably take the speaker out to a DI with a speaker input like a countryman type 2 if I were in your shoes, then run the xlr to the mixer at proper line level and impedance, nut I don't know of the amp needs a speaker load where you cant pull the speaker jack and let it run like a big preamp... well, no, I wouldn't be screwing around with this bullshit, I would just buy a piece of gear designed for headphones or play my amp in the room with my studio monitors blastin' whatever backing track.

It is kinda goofy, my dude 😆

I have an attachment to that amp. I've had it a long time and it's a nice little pedal platform. That said it's probably mostly sentimental, what solid state clean channel isnt a nice pedal platform these days!

I need headphones bc I like to play late at night (often along to songs hence the mixer) and I like to crank it, and it would not fly in my household to do that out loud :)

I think I may bite the bullet and get something specifically made for this. We have a Yamaha THR10 in the Equipboard testing rig and I think it'll fit the bill. I might just have to get one for home.

just embrace a piece of kit designed for this sort of late night jamming... I actually tried soemthing very cool at the philadelhia effects meetup last month. Guys were using this neuenbauer impulse response player and DI/headphone amp to demo their pedals and it sounded great. It was hard to admit how good it sounded. found it!

https://equipboard.com/items/neunaber-iconoclast-speaker-emulator neutral sounding, elt the effect do the alking, but kept everything in guitar range.

That looks incredible!! If it had an aux in i'd buy it immediately.

with that you could use your current line mixers....