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Excessive hissing in some tracks but not others?

gallionetech

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Hey all,

I've noticed that on any remaster (Stairway to Heaven) & on some tracks such as All of Me by John Legend there is an excessive amount of hissing background noise in the music? Is this my amp/DAC/power source or is this normal?

Specifically at the beginning of All of Me by John Legend I hear a lot of audible hissing/noise.

My music source is Tidal

Thanks in advance
 

Andysu

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need put this in a video as this is what ASR is about . videos so we can hear this hiss
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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need put this in a video as this is what ASR is about . videos so we can hear this hiss
I only use headphones with my A90D, do you know a way for me to record this? Thanks

I'm guessing it is part of the audio track as mentioned above. Does anyone know why this is? Also is there way to get tracks that don't have it?

Sorry if these are stupid questions

Thank you
 

restorer-john

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I only use headphones with my A90D, do you know a way for me to record this? Thanks

I'm guessing it is part of the audio track as mentioned above. Does anyone know why this is? Also is there way to get tracks that don't have it?

Sorry if these are stupid questions

Thank you

I think you may be a digital era baby? Analogue tape hiss, microphone and line stage hiss, mixing console hiss and amplifier hiss are all pretty normal for music and for us old geezers who spent decades trying to minimize it.

Music productions that happen entirely in the digital domain generally contain very little hiss.

Anything "remastered" from old analog recordings can be all over the place when it comes to residual noise.
 

Timcognito

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Try finding a download or CD that you have/own that is on Tidal and check both. Bet its Tidal's fault.
 

digitalfrost

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Are any of these remasters 192khz by any chance? I had problems like this, this page explains it:


There are testfiles on this page with which you can check if this issue affects you.

Some of these remasters have insane energy above 20khz that can fold down into a range that you can hear. For example here is Muddy Waters - You're gonna need my help in 192khz from HDTracks with all kinds of stuff above 30khz:

1674776094458.png



If I set my system to 96khz and play this I get strange noise. When I go to 48khz, problem gone.
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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I think you may be a digital era baby? Analogue tape hiss, microphone and line stage hiss, mixing console hiss and amplifier hiss are all pretty normal for music and for us old geezers who spent decades trying to minimize it.

Music productions that happen entirely in the digital domain generally contain very little hiss.

Anything "remastered" from old analog recordings can be all over the place when it comes to residual noise.

I am lol, thank you this makes sense. The music that I notice no to little hiss is definitely the new stuff.
 

SuicideSquid

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Hey all,

I've noticed that on any remaster (Stairway to Heaven) & on some tracks such as All of Me by John Legend there is an excessive amount of hissing background noise in the music? Is this my amp/DAC/power source or is this normal?

Specifically at the beginning of All of Me by John Legend I hear a lot of audible hissing/noise.

My music source is Tidal

Thanks in advance
As others mentioned on older tracks you might just be hearing tape hiss (my favourite example is the album Minstrel in the Gallery by Jethro Tull which has a quiet hum around 8kHz through the entire album - they finally edited it out on the Steven Wilson remix/remaster that was released a few years ago).

That doesn't explain the noise on the John Legend track though as that's a recent recording that would almost certainly have been done all digital.

If you A/B between a track you've heard noise on and no noise on, does it go away / appear instantly? DigitalFrost's suspicion that it might be extraneous high frequency noise from high sample rate tracks is certainly possible. What sample rate is the track, and what's your D90SE running at?
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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As others mentioned on older tracks you might just be hearing tape hiss (my favourite example is the album Minstrel in the Gallery by Jethro Tull which has a quiet hum around 8kHz through the entire album - they finally edited it out on the Steven Wilson remix/remaster that was released a few years ago).

That doesn't explain the noise on the John Legend track though as that's a recent recording that would almost certainly have been done all digital.

If you A/B between a track you've heard noise on and no noise on, does it go away / appear instantly? DigitalFrost's suspicion that it might be extraneous high frequency noise from high sample rate tracks is certainly possible. What sample rate is the track, and what's your D90SE running at?

The D90SE is running at 44.1kHz and the track on Tidal is 24 bit, 44.1kHz. attached are photos
 

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Sokel

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I tried the song and there's no sign of hiss at all.
Something else is faulty in between.
Have you tried other outputs,like USB?(I see you're using optical?)
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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As others mentioned on older tracks you might just be hearing tape hiss (my favourite example is the album Minstrel in the Gallery by Jethro Tull which has a quiet hum around 8kHz through the entire album - they finally edited it out on the Steven Wilson remix/remaster that was released a few years ago).

That doesn't explain the noise on the John Legend track though as that's a recent recording that would almost certainly have been done all digital.

If you A/B between a track you've heard noise on and no noise on, does it go away / appear instantly? DigitalFrost's suspicion that it might be extraneous high frequency noise from high sample rate tracks is certainly possible. What sample rate is the track, and what's your D90SE running at?

And yes it does appear instantly when I switch to the track that has it, and goes away instantly when I switch to the track without it. Thanks
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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I tried the song and there's no sign of hiss at all.
Something else is faulty in between.
Have you tried other outputs,like USB?(I see you're using optical?)

I hear it the most in the beginning of the song. I had my fiancee try it out and she agrees to make sure I'm not crazy lol.

Yes same results as USB, and also I had the same issue with my last AMP/DAC before I sent it back. None of the cables, or equipment is the same as my old setup. The only thing that is the same is the outlet it's plugged into.

Right now for example I'm listing to Flowers by Miley Cyrus which is 48kHz and absolutely no signs of hissing.

Switch back to All of me and there is a prominent hissing sound. Are you using Tidal?
 

Sokel

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Switch back to All of me and there is a prominent hissing sound. Are you using Tidal?
No,I'm not using Tidal but if it was it's fault it would be through the whole song,not just the beginning.
Try to choose 44.1Khz in the settings where now is 192Khz.
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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No,I'm not using Tidal but if it was it's fault it would be through the whole song,not just the beginning.
Try to choose 44.1Khz in the settings where now is 192Khz.
Already tried that didn't change anything. I actually hear it through the entire song it's just not as prominent as the beginning of the track. Maybe I should try purchasing a flac of the song
 

Holmz

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Hey all,

I've noticed that on any remaster (Stairway to Heaven) & on some tracks such as All of Me by John Legend there is an excessive amount of hissing background noise in the music? Is this my amp/DAC/power source or is this normal?

Specifically at the beginning of All of Me by John Legend I hear a lot of audible hissing/noise.

My music source is Tidal

Thanks in advance

What is really cool is to listen to this stuff on a TT.
One hears the hiss, and then it stops at the end of the track, and is quiet, and then a few seconds later it hisses just before the music starts.

Literally we are hearing the hiss of the master tape. So it should only be on quite sections, and StH is a quiet track.
So IMO, you should just enjoy it as the beauty of the era.

I suppose there are digital ways to try and remove it, but it would likely cut into the actual signal and one cannot remove the noise without knowing which is which.
It should only be happening on older stuff that was recorded to tape, generally <mid 80s for sure.

Stairway to heaven is analogue… as it should be.
Even heaven and hell are not binary, as they threw in the limbo place to make it analogue :facepalm:
 
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gallionetech

gallionetech

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Already tried that didn't change anything. I actually hear it through the entire song it's just not as prominent as the beginning of the track. Maybe I should try purchasing a flac of the song

Just tried a 16 bit, 44.1kHz flac of the song, it's way less prominent than Tidal and is pretty much undetectable anywhere but the beginning of the song. Maybe there's some compression of some sort going on with Tidal?
 

artburda

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Already tried that didn't change anything. I actually hear it through the entire song it's just not as prominent as the beginning of the track. Maybe I should try purchasing a flac of the song
I just tried it on Qobuz. Had to really turn the volume up, way more than is comfortable, but I could hear some hiss at the beginning of the song. Couldn't go through the whole song at that volume though.
 

Chrispy

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Just tried a 16 bit, 44.1kHz flac of the song, it's way less prominent than Tidal and is pretty much undetectable anywhere but the beginning of the song. Maybe there's some compression of some sort going on with Tidal?
MQA is a compression routine, are you using that?
 
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