MAM: HP48 Headphone Amp

Most of the focus of the audio industry goes into making new, innovative products, so it's nice to see someone go after the functional necessity side of things. MAM (Music and More) is a small German company that makes inexpensive analog processing (filters, phasers, EQs and a cool 11 band vocoder that I want to check out) that cost between $130-$400 retail. They also make utilitarian single rack space mixers, mic pres and this little headphone amp. I've used this on several sessions with loud, hard rock bands and it's got plenty of power to overcome the volume of the band and help to further deafen them. It has 4 separate amps, each with two headphone outputs and a volume control. You can use it for four different cue mixes, or cascaded from one mix with four separate volumes. Functional and pretty cheap at $160 list. (www.ucik.com, 800-732-6982)