Headphone systems

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Any h/p system will need either an audio multipair or a bunch of CAT5's. I would suggest you run an additional 16 pair and 2 or 4 CAT5's in prevision. I wished I had run 4 CAT5's in my studio: 2 for the Furman system and 2 for remote KVM. My conduits are full, so I have used flat CAT5 cables that I run under the carpet. Conduits are never big enough and whatever unaffected pairs you have made provision for is never enough :'(
 
I use the basic Furman, the HDS6/HR6. I was a little worried when I orederd it that it may be prone to picking up interferences, but I have no problems so far, and the power is really plenty.
 
I've used the furman systems a few times and always had trouble with them.  Maybe it was just my luck. 
I use Aviom systems all the time in live sound and don't see a reason why it wouldn't work in the studio.  I also use HearBack system.  Much cheaper and it sounds pretty good.  Less channel count but less than half of the price of Aviom.  Both of these systems run on Cat5.
My favorite is by far the PrivateQ system.  I use it in a studio here in town and it sounds fantastic.  It is an all analog system with class A circuitry. Kind of expensive, but another option.

Check them out.

take care
Gil
 
Can you explain the problems you had ? Was it the same system? Furman have two different systems, the HDS6, which is 6 channel on two CAT5, and the HDS16, with 16 channels on one Centronics 50pin.
 
I have some experience of the HDS16 system.

I'm thoroughly unimpressed by it. We have it in our big music & drama studio, wired into the building etc. The centronics connector is not suited to this application. It was designed for plugging your printer in and never moving it. They are particularly not suited to having the heavy cable that comes with the furman leads hanging from them.

The other thing is that the artiste boxes seem a bit lightweight and don't feel particularly robust, another feature of them is they come with a lot of sharp corners.

The base unit (for want of a better term) appears to be fairly well made, only thing I don't like is the sockets are on the front rather than the back.

I also have a vague recollection of the HDS6 being fairly similar.

There is talk somewhere else of someone doing a DIY kinda solution to this. I can't remember exactly where I saw it but it's fairly recent.

I'd avoid Furman's headphone systems if at all possible.

Roland do have a digital one based around their REAC digital snake thing...I've not seen it, but I've spoken to some studio engineers who have had a play and they seem very impressed by them. Thing is your wallet will take a serious hit!!!
 
The problem I had was with the 16 channel version.  The conectors are horrible and always gave trouble.  Some of the units stop working after a while.
We had it installed at a client of mine and a few years later more than half of the mixers weren't working.

I have used the Roland M48 systems mentioned above.  It is in fact an amazing system.  Probably the best one out there in my opinion, but it comes with a serious price.  Expect to spend around $6000 for a four mixer system, if not more.

I'd say Aviom or HearBack would be your best bang for the buck.

 
I must admit the RJ45/CAT5 cables on the HDS6 are not the best, but are probably preferable to Centro. The smaller size of the HDS6 makes it a little less offensive. In trems of performance it is up to the task.
 

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