Help! Best way to use your headphones with fm3?

You didn't tell us enough about the problem, so we can only give you a general answer: Get a 1/4" stereo (AKA TRS) to 3.5mm stereo adapter and plug it in, then plug the headphones into it.

What have you tried and why didn't it work?
 
Fractal puts in a very high quality DAC in the FM3 and FX3. The best test is to try it and see whether it meets your needs then worry about it if it doesn't. Worrying about it without knowing is just needless anxiety. Fractal says in many places in the manual and the Wiki that our ears are our best tool for determining if something is "good enough" or the right thing.

I use several types of head and ear phones and think the headphone output on the FM3 and FX3 are equal to the sound quality I get from my Scarlett, which is my primary audio output for my computer and, with Sennheiser HD650 headphones it's pretty fricken awesome. The Scarlett has a little more wattage than the FM3 headphone output, so 350 ohm headphones aren't able to get as loud on the FM3, but they still sound very good.

Generally I use a pair of Audio Technica ATH-MA40x and 1/4" adapter with the FM3 and they sound really good.
 
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Deftones115 said:
I’m just asking and my bad lol. I just want the best quality for clarity.
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1) Use the headphone jack.
2) Whatever adapters you do or don’t use to get that signal to your headphone, the clarity and quality of the audio will be the same.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Fractal puts in a very high quality DAC in the FM3 and FX3. The best test is to try it and see whether it meets your needs then worry about it if it doesn't. Worrying about it without knowing is just needless anxiety. Fractal says in many places in the manual and the Wiki that our ears are our best tool for determining if something is "good enough" or the right thing.

I use several types of head and ear phones and think the headphone output on the FM3 and FX3 are equal to the sound quality I get from my Scarlett, which is my primary audio output for my computer and, with Sennheiser HD650 headphones it's pretty fricken awesome. The Scarlett has a little more wattage than the FM3 headphone output, so 350 ohm headphones aren't able to get as loud on the FM3, but they still sound very good.

Generally I use a pair of Audio Technica ATH-MA40x and 1/4" adapter with the FM3 and they sound really good.
Click to expand...
Just curious, you can drive your HD650 with your scarlett without any external headphones amp ? It's supposed to be for 250 ohms max, and the HD is 300.
 
I am using my headphones with 250 OHM and the driver within the FM3 powers this easily, so loud enough at least for my ears...
 
Blueprint said:
Just curious, you can drive your HD650 with your scarlett without any external headphones amp ? It's supposed to be for 250 ohms max, and the HD is 300.
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This question comes at an opportune time because I was just comparing my Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 2nd gen headphone output with my Sennheiser HD6XX (which is the Drop.com variant of the HD650) vs FM3 headphones output vs an old 1980s Marantz PM-80 mark 2 receiver to figure out if I want to buy a headphone amp for these.

I just played some music through the Focusrite and USB of FM3 and then plugged the headphones into the different headphones and tried to match volumes as best as I could. The end result was that none of them sound any different to my ears but both the FM3 and the Marantz can drive the headphones to a significantly higher volume level. I was playing them at a somewhat loud level, louder than I would normally use for music listening.

I had the Focusrite at maybe 7-8/10 and FM3 at 4/10 and the Marantz at 3/10. For normal listening levels the Focusrite is at about 5-6/10. So with these headphones the Focusrite can just about drive them. It does need a high input level which can be a bit of an issue with modelers as they often have a lower output level than compressed music from streaming services or YouTube videos.

I should add that I am using Sonarworks SoundID Reference to flatten the frequency response of the headphones so that drops the output level a fair bit to avoid boosted frequencies clipping. You can probably take a notch out of the settings I stated for the Focusrite there.

So I'd say headphone amp is not necessary but would help give you a better range of volume control.
 
For me, Guitar > FM3 > MOTU M4 audio interface > headphones and speakers (Sennheiser HD6XX and Presonus Eris E5 monitors). On the FM3 I have OUT1 cranked all the way and control the volume with the M4. Two separate volume knobs for monitors and headphones. Zero latency. I can jam along with Spotify or Youtube jam tracks by adjusting the mix knob. For a bedroom rocker and amateur studio, it's a great setup. Love my setup.

Most high quality headphones will come with a 1/4" adapter
 
I can't imagine anyone thinking the FM3's headphone output is too weak. Even with HD650's 10% output is enough for me.
 
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