I heard a demo of the HEAR system at AES a couple years ago and it looked really nice and sounded good. Been thinking about getting it since. But I don't have any real experience using it myself. The feature I liked about it was it uses CAT5 (network cable) to connect to the remote stations which seemed really convenient and the fact that the musicians can set the mix and volume on the remote stations. So in other words, you don't have to set the mix for individual musicians, they can do it themselves.

How are the remote thingies powered?

Looks like they are powered by the hub through the cat5 cable.

http://www.heartechnologies.com/hb/hearbacksystem.htm

"A basic Hear Back system consists of a Hub and personal Mixers connected using standard CAT5E cables. A single Hub supplies signal and power to a maximum of eight Mixers."

It amazes me that they can get adequate power thru a 50 foot long Cat5 cable. It's rated at nearly 2 watts into 50ohms.

That seems like a big accomplishment.

Magic.

I don't know. I just briefly looked at the specs. I've been interested in getting a headphone distribution system myself in which the musicians could control the mix and free myself of the burdon.

Furman Also makes a sytem that uses the cat wire, it was recommended to me over the Hear system, by sales rep at full compass.

I use the Hearback system and am very pleased with it. I usually set mine up like this:

Channel 1/2: Stereo Pair used for playback of some arbitrary basic set of tracks.
Channel 3-7: Individual instruments/vocals that the performer may want to tweak.
Channel 8: Reverb (or Delay) return for the performer to adjust the amount reverb they want to help them deliver the best performance. Most singers seem to really like having control of this.

Normally after just a couple of minutes of instruction the performer can take total charge of their own mix. There have been a few non-techy types that have need a little help.

Each remote has two headphone outputs and I have not had any problems getting enough volume out of them. I haven't had a need to record a drummer who needed an extremely loud headphone mix but these get quite loud. I even get sufficient level with the older AKG 240m 600ohm headphones.

The cat-5 connections make things very easy to setup and get the remotes where you need them.

Just a quick note regarding the reverb feed to the headphones. I run direct monitoring for most of the tracks being recorded but the reverb is coming from Sonar plugins. This lets me virtually forget about latency. Any latency on the reverb is just a little pre-delay for the reverb signal. It doesn't cause any problems even at relatively high latencies as long as the main monitoring is direct.

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to having to create a bunch of mixes for everyone with headphones during a session. Much easier to let them do their own and after a few minutes most people don't have any problems getting them set just the way they want them. I see a lot of people tweaking them even during their performance. That would be very difficult if the AE is setting up all of the mixes.

Don

Really nice to hear from someone using one of these systems don4777. I've seen the furman and it looks like a very nice system also. Something just drew me to HEAR technologies company. I saw them at AES. Plus, their website is very organized and makes it easy to understand their product. I'm sure once we finally get the studio situated in a new location (bigger) HEARback will be top on my list for new gear.

don4777
I use the Hearback system and am very pleased with it. I usually set mine up like this:

Channel 1/2: Stereo Pair used for playback of some arbitrary basic set of tracks.
Channel 3-7: Individual instruments/vocals that the performer may want to tweak.
Channel 8: Reverb (or Delay) return for the performer to adjust the amount reverb they want to help them deliver the best performance. Most singers seem to really like having control of this.

Normally after just a couple of minutes of instruction the performer can take total charge of their own mix. There have been a few non-techy types that have need a little help.

Each remote has two headphone outputs and I have not had any problems getting enough volume out of them. I haven't had a need to record a drummer who needed an extremely loud headphone mix but these get quite loud. I even get sufficient level with the older AKG 240m 600ohm headphones.

The cat-5 connections make things very easy to setup and get the remotes where you need them.

Just a quick note regarding the reverb feed to the headphones. I run direct monitoring for most of the tracks being recorded but the reverb is coming from Sonar plugins. This lets me virtually forget about latency. Any latency on the reverb is just a little pre-delay for the reverb signal. It doesn't cause any problems even at relatively high latencies as long as the main monitoring is direct.

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to having to create a bunch of mixes for everyone with headphones during a session. Much easier to let them do their own and after a few minutes most people don't have any problems getting them set just the way they want them. I see a lot of people tweaking them even during their performance. That would be very difficult if the AE is setting up all of the mixes.

Don

I know this is a old thread so I hope someone is still out there watching because I need help in understanding a few things. I am now looking into the hearback system or something close to it, I have the Motu Ultralite which I use mainly for vocals and Roland Octa capture for drums. 
1. Is there a way to combine both interfaces so that i can use them together?
2. The concept of sub mixes is one that I don't quite understand I think. Sonar I hear has the ability for sub mixes anyone care to explain that please?
3. I can wrap my brain around individual instruments going to aux send out but how would you get an entire drum kit mic'd with 8 mics sent to one channel?
4. The goal is for every musician to control their own mix I would assume I need all separate sends out of Sonar into what exactly?  I read for the hearback there is a card that has 8 analog inputs I am assuming I would connect those eight inputs into the analog outputs of Motu or Ocapture or ???
5. In Sonar does that mean each output on the tracks is not using the master audio output channel to one of the analog outs on my module?
5.I have heard the term use the aux input on the hearback system for more me, how is that possible let's say for a guitar player?  If his guitar is in the main DAW for recording what is used to send him back into the headphone system as an aux?
 
I want to make sure I understand the concept before I buy any and all help is appreciated I am a newbie at all of this so thank you for taking the time to answer some of my questions

**BUMP**