In-ear monitors are becoming more and more common, particularly for us drummers. But nearly as common is the confusion over what to actually plug them into! Behringer’s P2 is a compact, portable, battery-powered personal monitor solution that takes away this question. If like me you don’t like spending loads of money on the parts of your setup that you don't actually play, you’ll appreciate the fact that you can bag this awesome in-ear amp for just £27 in Thomann’s Cyber Week sale.
Why would you want to, though? Well, when it comes to our in-ears, we need to plug into something with a headphone amp in order to drive our monitors. Common solutions for this include sending the feed from the PA system into the auxiliary input of a sample pad, an audio interface, or, carting around an additional mixer. All of which require powering and add to setup time - not ideal on multi-band gigs with short changeovers.
I’ve done all three at various points in the past, sometimes bringing a Roland SDP-SX for sample-less gigs solely to use for my in-ear feed. But, I haven’t had to think about any of that since buying the P2 - I’ve used mine at every gig since I got it.
With the Behringer P2, you get an active, plug-and-play solution for handling your monitor feed. It measures just 33x38x132 mm (HXWXD), is powered by 2x AA batteries and will run for around 12 hours.
It’s also equipped with a combo-XLR/jack socket for the input, so regardless of what cable the engineer is using, (or whether your own PA uses jacks or XLRs for the aux sends) you’ll be able to plug the feed straight in.
Engineers love it, because it makes their life easy, and (as I’ve done frequently), you can just borrow the cable that’s already running to a wedge monitor without disrupting the signal flow back at the desk. Just remember to put it back when you’re finished!
From here, you plug your in-ears into the mini-jack output socket, turn on via the switched volume control and boom, you’re now in control of the level of your monitor feed. It’s got a belt clip so you can hook the P2 onto your clothing, and the handy LED will let you see the battery level/power status.
Talking of which, when it comes time to change the batteries, you can quickly open the P2 up without any tools. Inside, you’ll also find a switch to select either mono or stereo operation. While you’re there, grab Thomann’s four-pack of AA batteries for just £1.60.
