noise/hiss on my components!

[swiftone 10+ year member]

I was just wondering if there are any ways I can diagnose a hissing/noise sound coming from my speakers. They are only evident at higher volume levels, but they dont seem to occur on all music. The hiss tends to be most noticible listening to rap/hip hop but with some rock albums the hiss is not there. Is this noise from the recording of the tracks, or is it some other problem such as gain settings etc?

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[Raven 10+ year member]

It could.. anything. Your HU could be adding noise. It could be coming in from the RCAs. It could be the amp.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Is it alternator whine? Does the pitch of the whine go up and down with the engine?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

It could be a high noise floor on the CD itself. Best way to test this would be to get a zero bit track and play it. If you have no noise/hiss with this track, then the noise is due to the CD's you are listening to and not your system.

If it's there on some CD's and not there on others, it would be my guess that's it's the CD's.

 

[canadian_mofo 10+ year member]

my hiss noice comming out of the tweeter goes up and down with the engine whats the most probable cause of this?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

my hiss noice comming out of the tweeter goes up and down with the engine whats the most probable cause of this?

That would be alternator whine.

Need to redo the ground on either the HU or the amp, or both. Find a new, better grounding location. Typically the culprit is the crappy factory HU ground location.

 

[swiftone 10+ year member]

Its definately not alternator whine. I have a cd of digital silence and I am thinking of playing that and seeing if I hear noise, is this a good diagnostic tool?

 

[Raven 10+ year member]

Yes, it is. It will tell you if your CDs are to blame.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Its definately not alternator whine. I have a cd of digital silence and I am thinking of playing that and seeing if I hear noise, is this a good diagnostic tool?

As Raven said...that will tell you if the hiss is in your system, or in the CD's you are playing at the time. If you play the disc and you still have a hiss/noise, then the problem is your system. If you play the disc and your system is dead silent then the problem is the source material.

I still wouldn't be surprised at all if the noises you are hearing are simply a high noise floor on the discs you are listening to.

 

[noob with an RS 10+ year member]

i have a slight hiss coming from my components also. you can only notice it when the song is paused or very low.. its not source material cuz i still hear it with no CD in. it doesnt bug me very much cuz its inaudible when music is playing.. but it's there when u pause the tracs. you think it can be my audiocontrol EQX?? the settings on the audiocontrol are crazy.. one band will be +7 and then the next will be like -5 ... so i can achieve a flat line on my RTA. but although i have these settings on my audiocontrol i have the input gain at -7 db to compensate for any signal clipping i may have introduced.

 

[swiftone 10+ year member]

Well the digital silence was silent, so thats a good sign. I guess it is just the noise on the music I listen to. Is there any sort of adjustments I can make to reduce the noticability of this noise, or am I stuck with it?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Well the digital silence was silent, so thats a good sign. I guess it is just the noise on the music I listen to. Is there any sort of adjustments I can make to reduce the noticability of this noise, or am I stuck with it?

You're stuck //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[bikejunkie223 10+ year member]

i have a slight hiss coming from my components also. you can only notice it when the song is paused or very low.. its not source material cuz i still hear it with no CD in. it doesnt bug me very much cuz its inaudible when music is playing.. but it's there when u pause the tracs. you think it can be my audiocontrol EQX?? the settings on the audiocontrol are crazy.. one band will be +7 and then the next will be like -5 ... so i can achieve a flat line on my RTA. but although i have these settings on my audiocontrol i have the input gain at -7 db to compensate for any signal clipping i may have introduced.

amp gains set way up can cause this (hissing between tracks)

 

[HydroCloud 10+ year member]

amp gains set way up can cause this (hissing between tracks)

Yea, that's what my problem was.

 

[noob with an RS 10+ year member]

amp gains set way up can cause this (hissing between tracks)

but my MTX amp is rated to produce 125 watts to two channels.. and thats pretty much where i have my gain set at. is it abnormal to hear noise due to this gain setting or is it probable its something else? if it happens to be the fact that i have the gains set too high i think turning the input gain to 0 should do the tricc since i would turn the gain on the components amp down right? because right now its at -7db which is basically a line driver turned down so i should maybe turn it up?