Headphone Monitor problem with my HUI

[Boom Chic]

I'm only getting sound out of the left side of my HUI headphone output. Any ideas? I've tried different headphones, swapped cables on the input, swapped the input, Used a different source, I'm not in "discrete" mode. I'm thinking it's the jack, but maybe I'm missing something simple and obvious? Anyone else experience this?

Thanks!

Karen

[Boom Chic]

Anyone, anyone?

[trakbytes]

It's probably the HUI. The analog section of that controller is somewhat less than robust. I've had one for several years, and while it's a great controller, I've had a lot of problems with the monitor section. I took the whole module out and re-soldered all the connections to the jacks, which helped for a while, but it's starting to get intermittent again. I suppose you could have it repaired, but the waiting time is 4-6 weeks locally in LA, and probably expensive. Mackie won't do it themselves. You could probably get a whole control module from Mackie, but again probably expensive. Maybe time to look at another monitor controller? Mackie's own Big Knob does about the same thing as the HUI monitor section, with a few more inputs, and it's around $300. My guess that's cheaper than the repair cost would be, and no down time. But check around, maybe you can find a better repair service than I did. Good luck.

rcm

[Boom Chic]

Thanks RCM,

How difficult (or easy) is it to get at the monitor jack(s) to fix them? Maybe it's an easy fix that I can do myself? I've soldered many a cable before.

Thanks for the tips!

Karen

[trakbytes]

Well, it's more tedious than difficult...

You have to remove the bottom cover (lots of screws), and then you can access the circuit board that has all the jacks attached to it. The biggest chore is removing all the nuts that hold the jacks to the back of the HUI. Seems you have to unhook a couple of ribbon cables, and kind of angle out the assembly. On mine I had a lot of cold-solder joints on the circuit board where the jacks were mounted. Pretty intuitive if you've done that kind of repair before, but I'd budget a couple of hours for it. Of course there's no way to test it without reassembly, so it could just as easily be a waste of time if you have bad components. Didn't seem there was much in the way of user replaceable parts on the circuit board, unless you have a bad jack itself. Might be worth a try if you have some spare time.

rcm