Low output whilst tracking?

[dickiefunk]

Hi,

I'm using the following setup whilst tracking :-

Input chain - Vanguard V13 > Warm Audio TB12 > Klark Teknik KT-2A > MOTU 828es > Cubase 10

Output > Cubase 10 > DAC's Headlite 2 headphone amp and studio monitors

The DAC's Headlite 2 is a very high output headphone amp and when I'm playing audio from YouTube etc I normally have the output set very low (around 2). However, when I'm tracking vocals I have to turn this DAC's headphone amp up to around 7-8!? This sounds quite hissy at this point but when I mute the vocal tracking chain in the MOTU 828es DSP mixer the sound is completely silent!? The hiss is obviously coming from my tracking chain though the recorded track in Cubase doesn't have any hiss at all? In fact I'm in the middle of doing some vocal tracking for a major studio that has been out-sourced to me and I did a quick comparison between the vocals recorded at the other studio and those recorded here. I did a crazy boost of levels within Cubase and was surprised to hear mine remained completely hiss free but you could hear hiss on the vocals recorded at the other studio!

Does anyone know why I'm having to really crank the output of my headphone amp to get the vocalist to a reasonable tracking level? Am I doing something wrong?

[dickiefunk]

Thought I'd bump this as I'm still having this issue! The bizarre thing is the DAC's HeadLite 2 is the loudest and least hissy headphone amp I've used so far!?
I tried the DAC's with my old Focusrite Saffire Pro24 DSP using the exact same cables and don't have this issue. The output is very loud and hiss free. Also, when using the headphone amps built into the 828ES I don't get any of these issues as well!?

Any ideas what might be going on?

[HCMarkus]

The 828es is a very quiet unit that, if properly set up, will not contribute significant noise to signal. Excessive noise is likely a gain-staging or routing issue. Go thru your signal chain and make sure every element of that chain is operating within its appropriate range. It is possible you have multiple inputs routed to your 828es output; one or more could be the source of your noise. Also possible: you are feeding an attenuated version of your input to your DAW.

Learn about the 828s Routing Matrix and the internal AVB Mixer. It is a bit much to grasp at first but, as is typical, with flexibility comes both power and complexity.

Also, make sure everything is synced to the same digital clock. Clock mis-match will mess you up every time

You can call MOTU for help, too.