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Studio monitor speakers without hiss?
- Thread starter quorzar
- Start date
This is more or less true for the cheap ones, not though for the good ones. My Genelec 8020a, Klein&Hummel O300D and Mackie HR824 are all dead silent but come at a price, the JBL 2325 does hiss a bit and hums too loud (50 Hz induced by the transformer into the amp) to be positioned close to a wall.
The interesting result of the cited video was that the power amp is the culprit, not the low level electronics (if I understood correctly).
That answer is as simple as it is wrong.
Chances are, if you were to use those same amplifiers to drive some passive speakers of average sensitivity (~85 dB / 2.83 V / 1 m), they would have very low to inaudible noise. Yes, even the TDA2052 that's driving the KRK tweeter.
A 1" dome tweeter will typically reach around 90-93 dB / 2.83 V / m - strike one. Add a larger waveguide, and it may reach up to 100 dB towards the lower end - strike two. On top of that, nearfields are not uncommonly used at <1 m - strike three. Barely treated or untreated environments do not help.
What is true is that amplifier ICs like the TDA2052 are barely adequate at the best of times - if you do the math, an application with +/-18 V supplies (for 32 W / 4 ohms) and a gain of 32 dB with this chip yields a dynamic range of about 103 dB(A) or 100 dB unweighted. (Not a few Class D chip amps have similar dynamic range, while typically insisting on 4-8 ohm loads to boot.) Now while typical treble levels are not very high on average, things like drum kits have a habit of producing peaks with an essentially white spectrum, requiring substantial peak output level even in the treble. If you are shooting for a peak output of 103 dB SPL or more in the treble, the problem should become obvious. Required amplifier dynamic range for 105-108 dB SPL quickly marches towards 110 dB - with previous stages included no less.
It follows that a lot of commonly available amplifier solutions are going to result in an inevitable compromise between noise and peak output level. A compromise that, I suspect, ends up not being particularly fine-tuned in a number of cases. This could be for all kinds of reasons - adding dropper resistors costs money if nothing else.
Less noisy monitors typically employ e.g. the LM3886 (found in Mackie, Behringer etc.), which is commonly operated at 6 dB less gain than the TDA2052 and supports quite a bit more output power (at higher supplies) as well, so dynamic range ends up closer to 110 dB. Even more can be squeezed out of a TDA7293 with both less input noise and higher supply voltages.
It is amplifier that causes hiss?
Yes
Does it mean that selected amplifier for that application is trash?
Yes
I don't care about types of amp they use. I just look at the result.
You can call the whole resulting system trash (in terms of noise), if you don't like people pointing at the amplifiers.
This is my struggle of the moment. And the reason why I ended on this thread.
My room in super quiet and I'm very sensitive with some upper mid frequencies. To the point I'm selling my Dell screen monitor cause I can hear a 7khz hiss at 20db coming out of it and it gives me headaches. Plus my listening position is at 1 meter only that certainly doesn't help.
Here's my experience if that can help:
I had Fostex px6 and these are super silent. Barely noticeable. Unfortunately they don't really sound great. I always struggled with them and never really enjoyed the sound.
Then I had Focal Alphas and the hiss was unbearable and low pitch power supply noise, then Shapes less hiss but still annoying. (both were silent at 1.5+ meters and sounded better btw which is the most common use case so I can't blame Focal).
I was about to pull the trigger on a pair of genes 8030C when a friend recommended me the iloud MTM which I have on my desk at the moment.
The Ilouds have a slight hiss at a lower pitch which makes it more ok but still annoying. And they have a high pitch power supply noise that sounds like an old 56k modem which can be audible in a super near field condition. I'll prob send them back too.
I'll give a shoot with the Genelecs now and hope for the best but I'm desperate to find my dreams monitors and I kinda feel like it's gonna be the same all over again.
So now I'm leaning towards passive monitors... But besides those Amphions I have not clue what to try in a reasonable price/value ratio and for a small room. I guess I could even use very flat hifi speakers if they sound great nearfield ? I've seen KEF R3s in a studio once but they were at least at two meters away from the engineer.
If anyone has recommendations to give for passive speakers or very silent active one I'll take anything.
Cheers !
My room in super quiet and I'm very sensitive with some upper mid frequencies. To the point I'm selling my Dell screen monitor cause I can hear a 7khz hiss at 20db coming out of it and it gives me headaches. Plus my listening position is at 1 meter only that certainly doesn't help.
Here's my experience if that can help:
I had Fostex px6 and these are super silent. Barely noticeable. Unfortunately they don't really sound great. I always struggled with them and never really enjoyed the sound.
Then I had Focal Alphas and the hiss was unbearable and low pitch power supply noise, then Shapes less hiss but still annoying. (both were silent at 1.5+ meters and sounded better btw which is the most common use case so I can't blame Focal).
I was about to pull the trigger on a pair of genes 8030C when a friend recommended me the iloud MTM which I have on my desk at the moment.
The Ilouds have a slight hiss at a lower pitch which makes it more ok but still annoying. And they have a high pitch power supply noise that sounds like an old 56k modem which can be audible in a super near field condition. I'll prob send them back too.
I'll give a shoot with the Genelecs now and hope for the best but I'm desperate to find my dreams monitors and I kinda feel like it's gonna be the same all over again.
So now I'm leaning towards passive monitors... But besides those Amphions I have not clue what to try in a reasonable price/value ratio and for a small room. I guess I could even use very flat hifi speakers if they sound great nearfield ? I've seen KEF R3s in a studio once but they were at least at two meters away from the engineer.
If anyone has recommendations to give for passive speakers or very silent active one I'll take anything.
Cheers !
The Adam A3Xs I use are fairly quiet, at least one of them. I can only hear mild hiss if I get my ear within less than 10 inches to the HF driver. The other seem to have some sort of issue and there's more of midrange background noise, but it's likely just a bad sample.
The Elac Navis is silent from what I can hear. Not perfectly smooth like a Genelec but great bash amps (class d power supply filtered through a silent AB amp.)
Otherwise a Devialet Phantom if you can get over the app.
And Genelec monitors are very quiet. The only company I know of that measures self hiss.
After having bad hiss with Presonus R65 I tried Genelec 8030 CP and they also have noticable hiss. Additionally, the sound of the Genelecs seemed quite sibilant. Sent the Genelecs back and am now using Neumann KH 80 DSP. They also hiss, but it has least offensive tonality and the hiss is quietest of the monitors I have tested so far. I have learned to live with them now. Don't have the sibilant sound issue also.
You can control output level of the Neumanns and I have set them to 100 dB. It is possible to set it even lower, but the hiss doesn't change. If the output is raised, the hiss is louder. I suspect you could control only input attenuation with Presonus and Genelecs that I tried and due to Neumann's output power control feature I was able to control the hiss better.
The biggest issue I had with Presonus is that when listening at low volume, I could hear the hiss. With Neumanns I do not perceive the hiss at low volume audio playback.
You can control output level of the Neumanns and I have set them to 100 dB. It is possible to set it even lower, but the hiss doesn't change. If the output is raised, the hiss is louder. I suspect you could control only input attenuation with Presonus and Genelecs that I tried and due to Neumann's output power control feature I was able to control the hiss better.
The biggest issue I had with Presonus is that when listening at low volume, I could hear the hiss. With Neumanns I do not perceive the hiss at low volume audio playback.
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I didn't expect the Elac to be this small ! they could fit on a desk. The design seems interesting but they're very expensive and for the price they might be better pro solution. But thanks. If they were easier to find in Europe I would have been down for an audition anyway.
D
Deleted member 65
Guest
Both Adam Artist 3 & 5 have class AB amps, haven’t heard any hiss whatsoever from my just bought & installed Artist 5. Since both are discontinued may be hard to find new.
Wow.. well thanks. You saved me a lot of time I guess. I went to an audition of the 8330 which I liked but I couldn't get close to them to have a proper listen. I'm pretty sure I won't stand the hiss on them either then.
I tried the kh120 which didn't really fit my needs. Very accurate but rather uninspiring for producing. But I'll go have a listen of the kh80 then.
Are you satisfied with the bass extension ? I'd rather not use a subwoofer that would cause more troubles in my room.
What latency are you experiencing with the onboard DSP ?
Any power supply noises maybe ?
Cheers for the tips.
How was the 8030 tested? With no cables connected? With and without a grounded outlet?
Should be less than 5dB at three feet.
Should be less than 5dB at three feet.
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Senior Member
With no connections, my Swans M200 (original version) are dead silent even with the volume all the way up (except for a very faint hum, but I’m not sure I’m not hearing it from somewhere else in the room). I do get a bit of hiss from my computer, but then only with the volume all the way up. I seldom listen with the volume more than about half-way, so I never hear anything at my seat.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
I have bad room for bass, but I would say you need a sub for bass music.
I perceive no latency.
Can't hear any tones at listening position, just hiss. Have a listen to noise.wav - it's recording from Rode NT1 mic from 15 cm of the tweeter. You can mostly hear room noise.
Grounded outlets, no input cables.
Well, you just proved him right in a sense. Even with LM3886 there are ways to reduce noise further.
Odd, my Mackie HR824 was right on the line as far as hiss I could tolerate.
Seems like the poeple is having different experiences with the same speakers all the time since I started to dig into this. I wonder if it's because of room noise floor, acoustics, different human hearing, maybe some bad serial of some units, a little bit of all these factors. But I'll be always confused by that.
It is a little bit of all of that plus perhaps some differences in EMI in the environment. The simple truth is that powered studio monitors have output gain at near full level and you are likely to hear the noise floor of the components. Especially if you are very close to the speakers. If you want to hear nothing then passive speakers are the sure way to go. Then you can set the output level on the amplifier.
Yepp, I couldn't stand the hiss from a pair of JBL 305p MKII's and sent them back, others have no problem with them.
*edit* Haha, this guy uses 305p's every day, but didn't like the noise from the Tannoy Reveal 402's with which I replaced my 305p's...
http://digitalstereophony.blogspot.com/2015/12/tannoy-402-review.html
There's also a nice picture showing the relative sizes of the 305p and 402 (the other reason I returned the 305p's)...
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Room noise is just one factor, some people just seem to be "noisy" and don't seem to notice certain things. No sense asking if they hear speaker hissing, monitor/power supply/cpu/gpu whine or car interior noise/rattling etc. because they don't care about it. If pressed, they may say that they hear something at very low level, but haven't even noticed it before it was pointed out.
I returned to passive speakers for my computer after trying few active ones.
