Headphones sound from Scarlett vs NP2

[SupiGagliardi]

Hello! So I finally got a pair of headphones, Sennheiser HD598, to go with my NP2! I use the Scarlett 2i2 to connect my monitors and my piano, and it also has a headphone input. The problem I found was that it sounds terrible if I connect the headphones to the Scarlett, maybe not terrible, but with bad quality and low volume. When I connected the headphones directly to the piano it sounded amazing! Just what I was looking for. But I don't know why is that, isn't it supposed to sound better with the Scarlett interface? It's a pain to have to change the cable from the scarlett to the piano everytime I wanna play. Is the scarlett just too weak for the 598?

[Mr_-G-]

It's a pain to have to change the cable from the scarlett to the piano everytime I wanna play. Is the scarlett just too weak for the 598?

??? What do you mean. How exactly do you connect the piano to the scarlett (i.e. which output of the pianot into which input of the scalett?) and with what kind of cables? Mono, stereo?

[SupiGagliardi]

It's a pain to have to change the cable from the scarlett to the piano everytime I wanna play. Is the scarlett just too weak for the 598?

??? What do you mean. How exactly do you connect the piano to the scarlett (i.e. which output of the pianot into which input of the scalett?) and with what kind of cables? Mono, stereo?

L and R output of nord connected to the two front inputs in the scarlett (stereo). And on the back of the scarlett I have both studio monitors. In front, I also connect the headphones in the specific 'headphone' input. So when I actually play, the piano sound would come from both the headphones and the monitors. Although I don't have the monitors on at the moment, just using the headphones. But what I meant in the post, was that with this setup (scarlett), the piano sounded much much weaker and rather bad, I can go full volume on the nord and it would still be low, on the other hand, If I connect the headphones directly to the piano, the sound is loud, very clear, and overall really good.

[Mr_-G-]

What do you mean by "(stereo)"? Stereo cables?
You need to use TS (mono) cables. Have you tried the line/inst switches and gain settings?
Do you still hear low quality if you connect only one channel?

[SupiGagliardi]

What do you mean by "(stereo)"? Stereo cables?
You need to use TS (mono) cables. Have you tried the line/inst switches and gain settings?
Do you still hear low quality if you connect only one channel?

Yea, I can get more volume with that, but the problem with the quality persists. It just doesn't sound really good. It sounds pretty cheap. I have no idea why is that. I'd hate to have to unplug the headphones everytime i wanna play the piano, but the sound quality is just so massive in my opinion.

ps: Im using TS cables also

[Mr_-G-]

Sorry I do not understand what you mean by "that" in "yea, I can get more volume with that". If you mean that by using only one channel you get a higher volume on the interface it means that when you are using 2 channels the audio is not really stereo and you are probably summing them up (and the drop in volume/quality is perhaps due to phase cancellation). But you might also mean trying the line/inst switches.

Could it be that you have configured the interface incorrectly? There is something about the channel configuration in this video which cannot bet tweaked from the hardware switched.
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... figuration

[SupiGagliardi]

Sorry I do not understand what you mean by "that" in "yea, I can get more volume with that". If you mean that by using only one channel you get a higher volume on the interface it means that when you are using 2 channels the audio is not really stereo and you are probably summing them up (and the drop in volume/quality is perhaps due to phase cancellation). But you might also mean trying the line/inst switches.

Could it be that you have configured the interface incorrectly? There is something about the channel configuration in this video which cannot bet tweaked from the hardware switched.
https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... figuration

Sorry, I wasn't really clear. I got higher volume by playing with the gain knobs, I forgot about those, still audio was quite bad, well, even worse maybe. I have the piano connected to the two front channels the Scarlett has. I thought that's the way of using the nord with stereo sound.
How do I use one channel? On the Scarlett, I just connect it to 1 of the 2 inputs, but what about on the nord? If there's L&R

[Mr_-G-]

Unplug one of the channels at the interface input and hear what happens.
You did not answer about the interface configuration. Have you done it or you are using it as it came out of the box?
Sorry this is as much as I can help without an interface like yours to try it myself.

[SupiGagliardi]

Unplug one of the channels at the interface input and hear what happens.
You did not answer about the interface configuration. Have you done it or you are using it as it came out of the box?
Sorry this is as much as I can help without an interface like yours to try it myself.

I just tried using just one channel and it sounds the same. I have already installed the drivers for the interface and all of the things the Scarlett website suggests. I don't know, it's weird. Could it just be that the nord built-in amp is just stronger than the Scarlett's?

[maurus]

I just tried using just one channel and it sounds the same.

That should not be the case. One channel should give a mono signal, two channels, correctly configured, should give a stereo signal. This points to a problem in the stereo configuration somewhere in your setup. As Mr_-G- suggested above, you are probably summing up the left and right signals from the Nord somewhere in your setup. With headphones on, you should be able to route the left channel to the left ear, and the right channel to the right ear. Whether this works correctly or not can be tested by unplugging and replugging either channel.