HDS-6/HR-6 HEADPHONE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
DESCRIPTION
The Furman Headphone Distribution System is
easy to set up, and makes your music sound
great. It provides custom headphone mixes to
a number of people in recording and rehearsal
environments.
The system consists of the rackmount HDS-6
Headphone Distribution System, and one or more
Furman HR-6 Personal Headphone Mixers.
The HDS-6 distribution system is designed spe-
cifically as a low-distortion line driver and power
supply for the most critical listening situations. The
HDS-6 typically connects to a mixing console and
provides both the interface and power to drive a
chain of HR-6 mixing stations. Since the HDS-6
provides signal, power and ground to the HR-6
remote mixers, you don’t have to worry about
locating your HR-6 remote mixing stations near an
AC power outlet.
Up to eight HR-6 mixing stations can be linked to
the HDS-6 (depending on headphone type and
impedance) and multiple HR-6s are easily daisy-
chained. You can even plug two headphones into
one HR-6. Please note that if you do, both head-
phones should be the same brand and model. If
they’re not, their listening levels probably won’t be
the same. Every musician plugged into an HR-6
mixing station can create his or her own custom
mix without assistance from the engineer in the
control room.
The HR-6 mixing station is compact, lightweight
and designed to clamp onto a mic stand. It pro-
vides a volume control for each of its four mono
channels, and a fifth volume control – assigned to
both the left and right – inputs the stereo chan-
nel. The stereo pot will most often be used for the
main control room mix, or for stereo effects from
the console. You can instead choose to use the left
and right inputs on the HDS-6 for two more mixer
channels or busses if you wish. Just remember
that the listening level of both inputs will be con-
trolled by only one volume control.
The HR-6 personal mixer provides another very
useful feature: the “Submixes Included/Excluded”
button. This button mutes the four monaural
channels. This means every HR-6 user can hear
the stereo source only, without having to alter the
HR-6’s four monaural settings. This is very helpful
when all musicians wish to hear playback of a
control-room mix.
CONNECTING THE HDS-6
Since the HDS-6/HR-6 system will be used
most often for studio tracking and playback, it is
designed to be direct-out patchable with mixing
consoles. If your system has a patch bay, we sug-
gest you connect the HDS-6 to it instead of your
console.
The HDS-6 has balanced TRS inputs, so balanced
outputs work best, but standard 1/4" phone-plug
cables will work fine too. Just connect the direct-out
of a mixer channel strip or buss to an input of the
HDS-6 and connect any stereo output of the mixer
to the stereo inputs on the HDS-6. Remember, you
can use the HDS-6 Left-Right stereo inputs for two
more mono channels or busses from your console
if your prefer.
CONNECTING THE HR-6
The HDS-6 connects to an HR-6 with two stan-
dard (10 base-T UTP) Ethernet-CAT5 cables. Two
cables, coded blue and gray and each 25 feet in
length, come with your HR-6; additional cables are
available from Furman.
Please see the following drawings.
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