What causes and how to get rid of hiss at high volumes?

KyleMac · 19 Aug 2006 at 00:02

I recently built a new system but kept my Audigy 2 Platinum Ex because I like using the external box. I use Sennheiser HD595 headphones plugged into the headphone socket on the box.

On my old system there was a very slight hiss at 100% volume. However, on the new system this appears at about 70% volume and is very loud by 100%. Is the motherboard (Gigabyte DS3) putting noise across the PCI channels or is it likely just a lose connection or something?

It's not a major problem since I don't actually use it at volumes that high but why does it happen in the first place?

benjo plz. · 19 Aug 2006 at 00:07

I take it that they don't have an inline remote?

KyleMac · 19 Aug 2006 at 00:40

No they don't.

I should probably add that these are the low impedence version of these headphones so they go louder anyway and that I probably mostly use them at 1-50% volume.

What I really want to know is why this happens with the same soundcard and headphones that were fine previously so that I can either fix it or avoid whatever is causing it next time.

EDIT: When the computer is booting up and all the usb devices come on properly there is a crackle in the headphones when the external box turns on as well. This never happened on the old computer.

EDIT2: Here's the setups:

Very low hiss and no crackle on boot:
Senn HD595
|
Audigy 2 external box
|
Audigy 2 pci card
| |
| Enermax 350W
|
MSI KT266 Something
|
Enermax 350W

Not so low hiss and crackle on boot:
Senn HD595
|
Audigy 2 external box
|
Audigy 2 pci card
| |
| Antec NeoHE 500W
|
Gigabyte DS3
|
Antec NeoHE 500W

Dr.EM · 19 Aug 2006 at 14:56

Poorer PSU ripple voltage and electrically noisy components surrounding the soundcard, presumably on the mobo, are my guesses. I don't see there being a quick fix unfortunately.

benjo plz. · 19 Aug 2006 at 18:00

Does the external box have its own volume control?

KyleMac · 20 Aug 2006 at 07:42

I fixed it.

There's a very loud crack (like a fuse going) when you power the thing on if you use the external box (that means the power is plugged into the sound card). To be honest, I don't know whether or not this happened before. I don't often actually turn my computer off (just restart), and when I do turn it on I probably just entered the room and don't have my headphones on.

EDIT: That crack is probably so loud because the headphones would be at 100% volume during boot. I hope it doesn't damage them over time.

There's still a crackle when the USB and other devices power on fully. It doesn't seem to effect anything and it might have happened before as well. My uptime is usually 3+ weeks so it's hard to remember.

I realised that my old Enermax 350W PSU only had 2 molexs per cable, while the Antec NeoHE 500W has 3 per cable. That meant that on my old computer the Audigy had a whole cable to itself so I went to check the power cables.

Now here's the culpit: I'd connected a fan to the same molex as the Audigy. Probably while setting it up I didn't want to run 3 fans off the same molex so I put one on the same molex as the Audigy. Now I have the Audigy off 1 molex, 3 case fans off 1 molex (running at 7V each), and a Plextor DVDRW off the last molex. I hope this setup is safe?

The only hissing I have now is the sea in a seashell type.

Dr.EM · 20 Aug 2006 at 12:23

Ah, yeah. The fan was inducing noise into the power supply line for the soundcard. It sounds fine how you have it now.

benjo plz. · 20 Aug 2006 at 15:19

KyleMac said:
The only hissing I have now is the sea in a seashell type.

To fix that, try turning up the pc output to full, and then turning the volume down using the volume control on the external box (if you haven't already).

KyleMac · 20 Aug 2006 at 18:08

Phnom_Penh said:
To fix that, try turning up the pc output to full, and then turning the volume down using the volume control on the external box (if you haven't already).

Hah, I meant like when you cup your hand over your ears and can hear the air moving around. The external box only controls windows volume anyway, which is annoying because that type of volume is at 100% during boot which is what creates that massive crack but these things don't need to be amped as they can go too loud anyway.