Request for help. Odd distortion on my Yamaha MG10XU mixer through headphones

  • Hey guys. Pardon me if this is the wrong thread to ask this, but I don't know where else to ask and my reddit post was removed. Maybe some of you can help me out a little bit? I've had a Yamaha MG10XU mixer for about a month now, and whenever I try to add volume to my headphone, I get annoying distortion. The whole sound starts to crackle at a certain volume level.. Me and my band needs to have fairly low volume for it to sound OK.

    • I've made sure nothing peaks, it's good below peak treshold
    • Tested with three different headphones all with 55 and 60ohm
    • Tested through main out L/R and phones output
    • Tested with and without a headphone-amplifier
    • Kemper is set to -15db in the output section and highpass at 100hz
    • My setup looks like this right now: https://imgur.com/a/qoV449n

    The issue persist throughout all of these troublesteps.. I can turn down volume on the mixer, and then turn up some more on the headphone-amp and the issue will still come back at the exact same volume level. Correspondingly if I do it the oposite and turn up the volume on the mixer, same happens.. Our headphones is not broken either, because they can play at much higher volume through my Focusrite Clarett for example..

    Extra notes is that I can lessen the issue if I take away bass from my guitar and put high-pass on all of my tracks and turn off bass completely. This led me to believe it's a gain issue, but like I said it's far below red, so I don't understand why this happens. Maybe some kindhearted guys here can help me out before I take it back to the store and embarass myself

  • Try pushing the 26dB pad switch on any channels that aren't microphones.

    It sort of helped a little bit, i was able to now use the gain-knob to regain the lost volume from using -26db, but still I get distortion after a certain volume increase.. If I set the headphone volume to more than 12-clock on the Supreme headphone amp in the picture, I get distortion.. The same if I crank the phono knob up on the mixer itself..
    Is the -26db button designed to circumvent such issues? Is that the reason the button is there?
    And why is my Focusrite Clarett able to feed much higher volume signals without distorting the signal than what the mixer is able to do?

  • My own experience has been that XLR inputs are designed for the lower levels coming from a mic, and that any other input devices need to be attenuated to avoid nasty distortion. If you're still getting distortion, then I would suggest cutting back the gain going into the mixer. What's the "phono knob" you mention?

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • Also, have you plugged headphones directly into the mixer to see if the distortion is from the headphone amp?

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • Also, have you plugged headphones directly into the mixer to see if the distortion is from the headphone amp?

    The PHONO knob is the seperate output for headphones (Monitor/PHONES white knob downright on my mixer). It's the channel where I connect my headphone-amplifier (in order to share it with other band members). I have tried the phono alone yes - like you ask - and also tried with headphone-amp, both yields the same distorted issue, very strange.. I have also tried to plug my headphones directly in to "main out L and R", just for troubleshooting sake, and also here it gets distorted.


    I didn't know about this XLR issue with distortion, never heard of it before now. But I did try to swap them with TS cables from the Kemper, but I had the same distortion from these also, so XLR was also sort of eliminated in the troubleshooting process.. I also made sure that my Kemper is outputting no more than -15db main.. All input signal is very stable, and it only gets distorted when I crank the volume over a certain decibel level

  • Is everything distorted, or just the Kemper? You can also drop the Kemper output by going to the Output menu and selecting "Main Out -12 dB". That's the next thing I'd try.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • Is everything distorted, or just the Kemper? You can also drop the Kemper output by going to the Output menu and selecting "Main Out -12 dB". That's the next thing I'd try.

    Yes everything gets distorted.. Even when we thought we found the optimum volume, and the singer started to sing really loud and the distortion came back. A problem on all channels.. It's like there's only room for so so much before it distorts.. And I don't even have a signal-booster for the mic, and I just imagine how much worse it would get with a signal-booster. Main out is already by -15db

  • BTW, the issue with XLR inputs is the preamps, not whether you come into it via XLR or TRS. They expect a low level signal and have a lot of gain, which is why you need the pads for other input devices coming into those channels. To troubleshoot this I would plug my headphones directly into the mixer and try a single input signal at a time to try to narrow down where the distortion is occurring. Of course, it's possible that you have a defective mixer, also. Is there another one around that you could try? You might also put the Kemper into channels 7/8 that aren't set up for microphones.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer

  • BTW, the issue with XLR inputs is the preamps, not whether you come into it via XLR or TRS. They expect a low level signal and have a lot of gain, which is why you need the pads for other input devices coming into those channels. To troubleshoot this I would plug my headphones directly into the mixer and try a single input signal at a time to try to narrow down where the distortion is occurring. Of course, it's possible that you have a defective mixer, also. Is there another one around that you could try? You might also put the Kemper into channels 7/8 that aren't set up for microphones.

    Hmm I tried that, and I still get distortion coming from the Kemper alone, on all tracks. Same results with the mic also.. I'm really out of options as to what this could be caused by.. I even SMS-ed with a friend who woks with repairing mixers, and he didn't know either.. Like you say it could be a faulty mixer, but I find that strange since it's a brand new one and it works perfectly fine with my Fluid F5 monitors

  • Well, perhaps you can get your hands on another mixer and see if your problem persists. If everything is distorted then the mixer is the likely candidate. Either way, I would start with a single input and get that working first.

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer