Behringer Powerplay HA8000 Headphone Amp

The HA8000 is a straightforward answer to a common problem: you have one stereo mix coming off a console and you need to get it into eight pairs of headphones, each at its own volume. In a live rig it shows up most often in playback or IEM-adjacent setups where click and cue feeds need to reach a drummer, a music director, and a handful of other players who aren't on wireless. Each of the eight channels takes its own dedicated 1/4" TRS input, but every channel can also blend in the stereo main bus — so you can send a shared house mix to the main in and feed individual trims or alternate cues per channel.

At 1U and 220mm deep, this fits cleanly into a shallow utility rack without fighting for space. The 25W nominal draw is low enough that it won't push a modest power conditioner, and the IEC inlet means standard rack power cables work without adapters. All connections are 1/4" TRS on both input and output sides — there's no XLR, no combo jack, no breakout — so plan your patch accordingly. If your console's cue outputs are on XLR, budget for adapters or a short TRS loom before load-in, because that's not a problem you want to solve at downbeat.

This unit earns its place in a rehearsal facility, a house-of-worship monitor rack, a theater pit, or any install where eight discrete headphone feeds need to come out of one box and cost is a real constraint. At $219 it's hard to argue against for utility work. Where it isn't the right call: a touring IEM rack where your artists need individual mix control, latency parity with digital systems, or the confidence that comes from a unit with a known service history on the road. For that, look at something like the Aviom or Hear Technologies personal monitor family instead. The HA8000 is a workhorse tool, not a performance-critical one.