Studio monitor speakers without hiss?

[pozz]

MR824 is at the same level as Genelecs and 8030C that I tried I could clearly hear the hiss.

Can you still hear some monitors from the point of view of hissing?

The most important thing is distance. Hiss is pretty low level relative to music. If you're far enough away, there's a good chance you won't hear it. That said, it could be masked by background noise but the spectrum is generally low, which limits masking. And then in a desktop setup you could easily be sitting less that 1m away from the speakers. No way to get around hiss then unless it's very low level, or you ignore it.

Though most of these monitors are advertised as being "nearfield", this doesn't mean much outside of expecting a listener to sit close in so that their output isn't limited. I don't know much about the economics of building these monitors but it seems that manufacturers and consumers have mostly treated hiss as an unavoidable trade-off so far. The hiss in most of the monitors on the list will be easily audible in a desktop setup. Most of the list also comprises popular models, which tells you what everyone has put up with for years. But, in a living room, studio or listening room, provided the monitor has enough output and you have several meters of listening distance to play with, hiss will be negligible.

Regardless, music is the best masker. And if your listening style is concentrated you can tune that hiss out most of the time. For me hiss is most annoying in casual listening, like if you're listening to an interview or quiet music and doing other things.

 

[usern]

Can you still hear some monitors from the point of view of hissing?

I only kept the Neumann KH 80 DSP speakers.

 

[pick_d]

Можете подобное видео сделать?

Sure, I wanted to make it anyway when tech support asks me (if they will even reply though)

 

[Alchemist_]

I have an older pair of Tannoy Reveals and the hiss was very noticeable when working late at night. In case the hiss bothers anyone else as much as it did me I'll mention how I got rid of it. I wired an 'l-pad' right before each tweeter and woofer. You can calculate how much DB reduction you want using this and then buy the two resistors needed. They look like this. If you use the l-pad calculator it reduces the output of the speakers (thereby bringing down the hiss) without altering the frequency balance. I went with 14db reduction and no longer hear hiss. I did some measurements using Room EQ before and after and saw no real changes in either frequency response or in the waterfall graph. The l-pads will bring down the max volume your monitors can output but that was always too high for me anyway.

One note: the l-pad should be a 'fixed' type and not the prebuilt variable types you can find online.

and what is your model Reveal 402/602/802 or some other?
Is the amplifier in their class AB or D?

 

[pg_ben]

and what is your model Reveal 402/602/802 or some other?
Is the amplifier in their class AB or D?

Mine is quite an old model I think referred to as just as Tannoy Actives circa 1998. That was partly why I felt comfortable tinkering with it. But the same method should work regardless of woofer size or amplifier class. Am I right in that you have Mackie MR 824s? From the manual I see the woofer is 4 ohms and the tweeter is 6 ohms. So for woofers I would buy the 1ohm and 3ohm resistors of this type and for the tweeter 4.7ohm and 1.5ohms. That would give around 14db reduction to both according to the l-pad calculator. That said, someone more knowledgeable than me replied earlier saying it's possible to use a single resistor rather than an l-pad circuit so that could be worth exploring. If you're unsure about messing with electronics you could always bring it to a repair shop and ask them to do it. Keep safety in mind.

 

[Alchemist_]

Mine is quite an old model I think referred to as just as Tannoy Actives circa 1998. That was partly why I felt comfortable tinkering with it. But the same method should work regardless of woofer size or amplifier class. Am I right in that you have Mackie MR 824s? From the manual I see the woofer is 4 ohms and the tweeter is 6 ohms. So for woofers I would buy the 1ohm and 3ohm resistors of this type and for the tweeter 4.7ohm and 1.5ohms. That would give around 14db reduction to both according to the l-pad calculator. That said, someone more knowledgeable than me replied earlier saying it's possible to use a single resistor rather than an l-pad circuit so that could be worth exploring. If you're unsure about messing with electronics you could always bring it to a repair shop and ask them to do it. Keep safety in mind.

I haven't purchased the monitors yet. First of all, I was interested in the issue of noise, since I do not want hissing monitors.

 

[item]

I had some monitors on hand and have started to gather more to quantify how hissy these things are. Bugs me. Work in progress, but you'll see, for instance, that the ADAM S Series can be pretty civilised in terms of self-noise, or a bit of a monster - depending on how you crank it. Most monitors behave this way. But backed off the detent, its score of 113 is the lowest measured so far.
ADAM S Series Hiss Profile
Extracted from a page under construction here: Hiss Ranker (2021 Edition)
I know the only thing that matters is whether we can hear hiss at a working distance, but it's helpful to see where, and how high, the peaks are. Commonly they centre around 4.5KHz and 8KHz, but as you can see from the graph, ADAM's house specialty is noise in the near-ultrasonic and definitely ultrasonic range - escalating out of view. In the case of the S Series, the crucial takeaway is: set the monitor to -15dB and use the AES input. Whereas in the case of the Dynaudio LYD's it doesn't matter.

 

[jonfitch]

Just picked up a Genelec 8341 pair. Tried using optical output to XLR. The hiss is ridiculously loud. According to my admittedly crappy phone mic, about a good 8-10db of just plain hiss over ambient. Completely unusable in a quiet environment at extreme nearfield unless you want to switch the speakers on/off between listening sessions. Switched between multiple DACs and adapters, all of them had this annoyingly loud hiss.

I switched to digital AES with the GLM kit. About 80% of the hiss is mostly gone. With AES its the virtually the same as with no audio connections. But still at least 10x louder than the hiss coming out of my KEF Reference 1s hooked up to my old Yamaha receiver.

 

[Χ Ξ Σ]

I wonder how loud of a hiss this guy is getting.

 

[snowsurfer]

I consistently hear just shy of 16.5 kHz on tests (just tested again), and frankly I can't hear any hiss from my JBL 305 Mk1. Truth be told, they are sitting next to my behemoth PC which has 5 140mm fans and two beefy graphics cards, each with three fans of its own, but even when the PC is turned off I can't really hear much if any hiss, with my ear 2cm from the driver. The speakers are on max gain always (I use my DAC for volume control).

 

[MGG]

I own pair of Genelec M040 monitors and while hiss is clearly audible from few centimeters away (input level setting -10dB), and definitly much louder then barely detectable hiss of Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 + NAD 325BEE combo, Genelecs are perfectly quiet from normal listening distance (>70 cm).

 

[thewas]

I own pair of Genelec M040 monitors and while hiss is clearly audible from few centimeters away (input level setting -10dB), and definitly much louder then barely detectable hiss of Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 + NAD 325BEE combo, Genelecs are perfectly quiet from normal listening distance (>70 cm).

Funny coincidence, I used to own the Genelec M040 too and some years even before a Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 + NAD 316BEE combo.

 

[MGG]

Funny coincidence, I used to own the Genelec M040 too and some years even before a Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 + NAD 316BEE combo.

I know it's off topic, but I have to ask, how do they compare in your opinion?

 

[thewas]

I know it's off topic, but I have to ask, how do they compare in your opinion?

I had the 10.1 many years before the M040 so no direct comparison, but from my memory the Genelec was a different beast in terms of neutrality, SPL and bass, although the Diamond wasn't also bad, especially for a loudspeaker without a significant waveguide:

Source and more measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/wharfedale-diamond-101-loudspeaker-measurements

 

[MGG]

Diamonds 9.1 are great speakers for the price IMO, I actually bought them after I sow Stereophile measurements: https://www.stereophile.com/content/wharfedale-diamond-91-loudspeaker-measurements
M040s are a very clever design and they can play significatly deeper as you noted, but sound slightly muddy in the midrange to me. Perhaps it's my room, I need to take some in-room measurements. I think Gradient Revolution (active version) will be my next acquisition.

 

[jonfitch]

I wonder how loud of a hiss this guy is getting.
View attachment 111875

I'm gonna guess he can't hear it above the drone of his gaming PC. The prebuilts especially are quite loud, not unusual for them to be 20+db above ambient. This is why every other review on Amazon on the audibility of some electronics will have some variation of a comment like "Can't hear it over my PC."

If anything its the console gamers that are the "master race" now because current gen consoles are relatively silent now. Lol

 

[Richard Berg]

My Dynaudio BM5a are quiet enough on the -10 setting (used with balanced inputs). Though I turn them off anyway.

 

[AnalogSteph]

My Dynaudio BM5a are quiet enough on the -10 setting (used with balanced inputs). Though I turn them off anyway.

Note: From seeing the level trim settings (+4 - 0 - -10), I'd suspect they may be backwards from what one might expect - i.e. +4 (dBu) is the quietest and -10 (dBV) is the loudest. Genelecs are like that, too, with an adjustment referring to nominal input level.

If you have something like +16 dBu available, I'd go with the +4 setting.

 

[Richard Berg]

I can assure you that's not the case.

 

[AnalogSteph]

That's interesting then. How big is the gain change between +4 and 0 relative to 0 and -10? I won't be surprised if there had been some confusion between the people who were working on this unit, and things had basically gotten labeled backwards. Couldn't blame them. These numbers look suspiciously like they were originally intended to be -10 dBV (-8 dBu), 0 dBu and +4 dBu for a given output, covering a 12 dB trim range as found on a number of other monitors as well.