Plugging Headphones into Floor Wedge Monitors(?)

[Axe Chemist]

Hey Guys,

I'm trying to come up with a cheap solution to in-ear monitors for my church band. We have been struggling with the monitor volume so I was thinking about purchasing one of those small 4-channel headphone amps for my keyboard player, drummer and myself to tap into. We have a wedge floor monitor at our feet that we can barely hear since the drums aren't caged. This particular monitor is at the end of the parallel chain so today I experimented by plugging a cheap set of headphones directly into the open 1/4" jack and had plenty of volume in the ear buds (way too much). So I was wondering if it's safe to plug in a headphone amp to that same 1/4" jack? This way, we could each have our own set of earphones and we would be able to control our volume independently. Has anyone ever tried this? It sounded like my earbuds were going to explode so I don't want to damage a headphone amp if this 1/4" output on the monitor isn't designed to be used this way. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Desensitized_J]

I would not do this. It is bad news to run a amplified signal into a piece of electronics designed to recieve a low output signal. You should run the monitor send or aux out from the board to the headphone amp. Sending a high watt signal into a headphone amp is a sure way to fry it.

[Axe Chemist]

Thanks! That's what I was afraid of. We're only running a small 16 channel board to a snake cable with an XLR junction box. I wonder if there is an aux out from there? The board may be too far from us to tap in directly. Thanks for your help.

[Twitch]

The board may be too far from us to tap in directly.

Headphone extension cords are cheap.