I am a bassist, and since our band switched to IEMs, I have been struggling to achieve a clean sound at a high enough volume in my headphones.
The signal chain is as follows: Passive Jazz Bass -> Jad Freer Capo DI -> Presonus SL 24R -> Millenium HPA In Ear -> MEE Audio M6 Pro 2nd Gen.
Upon initial setup, I noticed that I am unable to properly adjust the gain on the input of the Presonus or on the aux output without experiencing distorted bass guitar sound in my IEMs. I have to keep both levels in the "green" zone and avoid the "yellow" entirely. This forces me to maximize the gain on my headphone amp. However, this leaves me with no additional volume reserve for potential stage use, and the sound is still not loud enough (especially considering the presence of a loud drummer nearby).
For comparison, I connected my headphones directly to the headphone monitor output on the Presonus main channel, and the sound was clean and sufficiently loud (probably because of on-board headphone amp). This leads me to believe that either the output from the Presonus rack mix is too hot or my headphone amp is unable to handle the bass frequencies.
I have also attempted using a Behringer PM1 instead of the Millenium HPA, but encountered the same issue.
I acknowledge that this setup is relatively budget-friendly, and I am willing to invest more. The initial goal was to transition the entire band to IEMs and then upgrade equipment once we are all comfortable with the system.
Rather boring technical specs follow: