Recording - November 2016 - 48

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

Jonathan Little and his company Little
Labs have been handcrafting microphone preamps, guitar re-amping boxes,
distribution boxes, and more in his
Hollywood Hills tower laboratory for
over three decades. I usually introduce
him as "the little black box guy", since
85% of his products come housed in
black 61/2" x 41/8" DI sized enclosures.

Little Labs Monotor
This little headphone amp provides a great range of quality monitoring options
This month, however, we look at Little
Labs latest device, the Monotor, and it is
dressed in pearl white! It was previewed
at AES and NAMM last year with its big
brother the Monotor Presentor also in
white.
A guided Mono-tour
The Monotor is an audiophile headphone amplifier designed for use in professional recording studios. You're probably thinking, "Everything from my mixer
to my sound card already has a headphone out." Yes, they do. Having said
that, while there are obvious exceptions
(see the Apogee Symphony I/O MKII
reviewed in last month's issue), really
good-sounding headphone outs are not
the norm. Also, many larger studios still
use older pro consoles that do not offer
dedicated headphone outs.
The Monotor shares the same direct
box-sized tolex-covered metal enclosure
as most of the Little Labs fare. It is a very
simple and sparse device, especially
compared to many of Jonathan's boxes
like the Pepper. However, what it does
puts it on par with many full-fledged monitor controllers... and even puts many
competitors to shame when it comes to
detailed and informed listening choices.
Starting on the left side of of the front
panel are four headphone outputs: a
pair of 1/4" and a pair of minijacks.
These are fed by two dedicated amplifier stages, one for each large/small jack
pair. All four are active at all times, sharing the same output feed.
The headphone amplifier stage is the
only active circuit in the Monotor, using
what Jonathan dubs "a Zen circuit
48

RECORDING NOVEMBER 2016

design". Before the headphone driver outputs, the signal path is completely passive, as is all summing in the Monotor.
The manual recommends that if two
people are using the Monotor at the
same time, it's best to start with each person using a separate side/amp.
However, I noticed no audible degradation, even when all four outs were used
simultaneously. If you are using four pairs
of matched headphones, the level and
sound are perfectly matched. Note that
this won't be the case when using headphones with widely different impedances;
higher-impedance phones will be lower in
volume than low-impedance ones.
That is, of course, part of the magic of
the Monotor. It can drive expensive
headphones much better than many budget headphone amps. It also helps that
the Monotor circuitry is dead silent on its
own... as in, "Is this thing even on?"
silent. It also gets really, really loud!
Said volume level is controlled by a
stepped output attenuator. On each side
of the attenuator are a pair of holes
which hide recessed push buttons... so
recessed that I thought my unit was perhaps a prototype that was missing them,
until I took the face plate off to see that
they are recessed over an inch inside the
case! These bypass the left and right
attenuation levels and disable the output
knob. This sets the Monotor's level to a
fixed, wide-open setting.
This is handy for a few different scenarios. For example, it's good to bypass
this control when your DAC or sound
card has its own quality volume control.
This eliminates the tug of war between
two level settings in the audio chain.

Another possible use is that since you
can choose to bypass only one pair of
outputs, it offers a quick and easy way to
send the tracking mix to one output pair
and the source being tracked to the
other. With one channel getting a direct
feed controlled from your DAW, and the
other being attenuated with the output
knob, the tracking musician can do quick
level adjustments on their own to hear
more of themselves or more of the mix.
Putting the Mono in Monotor
The last control on the front is a
stepped switch with 6 LED lights above
it. Each light indicates one of the unit's
six output settings, in green when selected and red when not. The first two,
marked R/L and L/R, are stereo outputs.
L/R is normal left and right listening
while R/L allows you to flip the stereo
image between left and right.
The next three choices are mono outputs. These include L + R, which is true
mono summing of the channels, and a
mono output of one channel (L or R) sent
to both ears. The last output choice is
labeled L-R; it allows you to collapse the
center of your phantom image and check
for phase issues. This is the setting where,
on many recordings, you can cancel out
the vocals or just listen to effects... or
make stereo effects that get a spacious
signal through phase inversion disappear.
Backing it up
On the back of the unit is a 4-pin bipolar DC input jack for use with the unit's
beefy external power supply. Next are a
pair of Amphenol input jacks with a
choice of XLR or 1/4" TRS input. Next to

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2016