Studio monitor speakers without hiss?

[majingotan]

I've heard these a number of times at the apartment of a friend who has a pair. They don't sound at all bad to me, although his room is very poor acoustically, and he has them close to a wall, so all I can really say is that they're not terrible - not sure whether they're actually very good. Of the HS range (each of which I've heard in different rooms making it difficult to reliably compare), the HS7s seemed to sound the best to me.

My subjective preferences after trying headphones and IEMs in the thousands of dollar price range (HD800, Focal Stellia, Meze Emperyean, Dan Audio Voce, HifiMan HE1000, 64 Audio U18T, CA Andromeda, Sony IER-Z1R, CA Solaris, Jomo Trinity, 64 Audio U12T, Tia Trio and more) led me to the conclusion that I prefer the Yamaha’s HS7 performance overall especially tonality. Headphones and IEMs just can’t sound tonally correct to my sonic preferences

 

[trl]

Hello,
because of the measurements, I bought the JBL 305P Mark II for my desktop. The problem is, that Im very sensitive with noise, but I wanted to give them a chance.
At the end I sent them back because of the hiss.

1. What measured speakers are dead silent?
2. Are there some silent ones in the same price range with similar performance? (max. 250$/speaker)

QUO

This is what I do to lower the background noise on my active speakers (Mackie MR6mk3):

1. Use a balanced input source and decent quality balanced interconnects (anything that is not alibaba should probably do).
2. Get few high quality recorded songs with a good dynamic and peaks pretty close to 0dB (foobar VU-meter or any editing software can tell yu that).
3. Setup computer's volume and source's volume to the max (or pretty close to the lowest THD+N setting, if you have access to such measurements).
4. With volume settings to the lowest on your active speakers, increase the volume pot. till distortions become audible (usually on the low end).

Reason for the above is simple: active speakers amplification is usually pretty high, so some background noise might be audible if their internal volume pot. is higher than actually needed. So use audio source volume pot. higher and active speakers pot. as low as possible.

Note: With my MR6mk3 the background noise during a perfectly quiet night is audible if my ears are closer than 0.5m to the tweeter.

 

[stevenswall]

I made a video on studio monitor hiss, comparing several models: JBL, Focal, Neumann, Adam, etc hooked up with XLR cables:

There's also a video on that channel of the hiss from the Kali IN-8, which is self noise, as it is the same even in a fully treated studio with power conditioning and balanced inputs.

My personal experience is that Genelec is the only company that makes Class D amps I'm generally comfortable with. Other than that, I don't notice hiss from the Elac Navis or KEF LS50. I do notice hiss from Kali, JBL 3 and 7 series, and a Mackie HR824 I'd say is on the line of hiss that is low enough I can potentially tolerate it.

The most hiss I've heard is from the IN-8, which seems to hiss more than the JBL LSR104 or Harman Kardon Soundsticks, both of which are under $100.

Not sure there are many things that don't hiss that are cheap, as most companies go for loudness after a certain point, and I've lost faith in JBL and Kali.

Maybe the Micca that scored well here wouldn't hiss?

Also: Whenever I hear hiss, I'm typically testing without any source plugged in, and power conditioning has never made a difference, nor has shorting the input or using balanced inputs or removing grounding pins whenever I've tried. Hard to believe though when so many people try to troubleshoot things and assume it's not from the monitor itself because they don't hear it. You can't really trust reviews unless it's someone who also hears hiss where you do... and there are people who literally cannot hear or don't notice the hiss from the JBL LSR3 series, which is very obvious if you don't have fans and such running in a house. Kali's are even more obvious, as they can be heard over some appliances.

 

[stevenswall]

My subjective preferences after trying headphones and IEMs in the thousands of dollar price range (HD800, Focal Stellia, Meze Emperyean, Dan Audio Voce, HifiMan HE1000, 64 Audio U18T, CA Andromeda, Sony IER-Z1R, CA Solaris, Jomo Trinity, 64 Audio U12T, Tia Trio and more) led me to the conclusion that I prefer the Yamaha’s HS7 performance overall especially tonality. Headphones and IEMs just can’t sound tonally correct to my sonic preferences

That's interesting. I've heard several of those at conventions and absolutely love the sound of the JH Audio Lola... and having heard an HS8 in a studio, I really prefer the Lola, and had to get a pair of Genelec 8260s for it to sound like I wasn't missing anything.

For me it's speakers that often don't seem tonally correct, as they have uneven dispersion, and one has to deal with reflections. To get something that competes with an IEM, especially for bass and tonal balance, the going ratio for me seems to be ten to one.

 

[maty]

...My personal experience is that Genelec is the only company that makes Class D amps I'm generally comfortable with. Other than that, I don't notice hiss from the Elac Navis or KEF LS50. I do notice hiss from Kali, JBL 3 and 7 series, and a Mackie HR824 I'd say is on the line of hiss that is low enough I can potentially tolerate it.

* ELAC Navis: two class AB amps

* KEF LS50W: woofer with class D and... tweeter with class AB.

Usually the hiss problem is cheap class D amp with tweeter.

 

[stevenswall]

The people recommending Yamaha: Seems like that is the only option in this price range. They use class A amps for their tweeter don't they? There's a heat sink on the back of the HS8. The one I heard at a friend's studio was very, very quiet. (Can't hear it from the listening position or with my ear even a foot away. Don't think I put my ear right on it because it might smudge it.)

 

[stevenswall]

* ELAC Navis: two class AB amps

* KEF LS50W: woofer with class D and... tweeter with class AB.

Usually the hiss problem is cheap class D amp with tweeter.

Correct, Im really glad KEF used a class AB, and I really like the Class D driving a Class AB in the Elac Navis with the BASH amp they use.

That being said, it could be a cheap amp or simply engineers/product managers who would rather have something go loud. For example, the $100 Harman Kardon Soundsticks didn't hiss enough to bother me in college, but the $800 Kali IN-8 does hiss way too much and does bother me. Kali has even suggested they simply made the tradeoff because then the speakers go louder and it's more dynamic, but to me, I don't think it's very useful to make speakers louder when I NEVER reach clipping, NEVER have dynamics max out a nearfield monitor, and NEVER listen to my speakers at full volume.

But heck, maybe if they keep making them louder at all costs, they won't have to worry about hiss that the consumers can't hear, and most major producers, sound techs, and DJs absolutely trash their music with compression and trying to blow the audiences ears out, so eventually hiss won't matter to anyone when their ears are deaf and the music has no soft parts anyway.

 

[Tks]

Active speakers are noisier than passive for the simple reasons they are generally connected directly to the amplifier that drives them. The tweeters don't have a passive attenuating network that is present in non-powered speakers. The other reason is the quality of the amplifier driving the treble units in active speakers. Generally, they are as cheap as they can get away with and overall power in compact package is the goal, not low levels of residual noise.

Skip the active route, buy some passive speakers you love and an amplifier with very low residual noise and all your hiss problems will be history.

Bear in mind, no amplifier is dead silent, they all have some residual noise, but amplifiers like the Benchmark take the noise to very low levels.

Odd to see how popular speaker reviews are, yet no company making the effort to beat Benchmark's amp that is now half a decade old by this point...

 

[maty]

It seems that many cheap chipamp class D produce hiss (tweeter) if the gain is very high (to save money in electronics).

The same with cheap chipamp class AB (as the famous LM3886 or TDA7294? of Neumann KH120) seems not to be so problematic.

 

[Kouioui]

The noise floor in my room is 35dB. I sit in a 5ft equidistant triangle from first-gen JBL LSR305Ps with their input gain at 50% and hear no hiss at my listening position. 12 o'clock on my K5 Pro's volume knob produces 85dB at my ears using pink noise in REW with a calibrated UMIK-1 measurement mic. Most of my listening is between 65-75dB but I'll spot check at 85 for mixing. I have no desire to go over that but there's enough headroom in the system to do so. To hear hiss I have to be within 1ft of the speaker at tweeter level.

 

[somebodyelse]

It seems that many cheap chipamp class D produce hiss (tweeter) if the gain is very high (to save money in electronics).

The same with cheap chipamp class AB (as the famous LM3886 or TDA7294? of Neumann KH120) seems not to be so problematic.

You're conveniently forgetting about the noisy class AB examples and quiet class D ones. The TDA2052 used in the KRK Rokits among others is every bit as bad as the class D ones you're complaining about. The class D in the Neumann KH80 seems not to be problematic. The cause is noisy amps, not what class those amps are.

 

[maty]

In the end everything revolves around cost reduction in a very competitive segment.

 

[trl]

I made a video on studio monitor hiss, comparing several models: JBL, Focal, Neumann, Adam, etc hooked up with XLR cables:

There's also a video on that channel of the hiss from the Kali IN-8, which is self noise, as it is the same even in a fully treated studio with power conditioning and balanced inputs.

My personal experience is that Genelec is the only company that makes Class D amps I'm generally comfortable with. Other than that, I don't notice hiss from the Elac Navis or KEF LS50. I do notice hiss from Kali, JBL 3 and 7 series, and a Mackie HR824 I'd say is on the line of hiss that is low enough I can potentially tolerate it.

The most hiss I've heard is from the IN-8, which seems to hiss more than the JBL LSR104 or Harman Kardon Soundsticks, both of which are under $100.

Not sure there are many things that don't hiss that are cheap, as most companies go for loudness after a certain point, and I've lost faith in JBL and Kali.

Maybe the Micca that scored well here wouldn't hiss?

Also: Whenever I hear hiss, I'm typically testing without any source plugged in, and power conditioning has never made a difference, nor has shorting the input or using balanced inputs or removing grounding pins whenever I've tried. Hard to believe though when so many people try to troubleshoot things and assume it's not from the monitor itself because they don't hear it. You can't really trust reviews unless it's someone who also hears hiss where you do... and there are people who literally cannot hear or don't notice the hiss from the JBL LSR3 series, which is very obvious if you don't have fans and such running in a house. Kali's are even more obvious, as they can be heard over some appliances.

I can't find any details about this test. I hope the test was setup for an identical output power for all speakers, which is different than setting the volume knob at the same position (e.g.: 12 o'clock). A simple dB-meter or REW+mic and an audio source playing 1Khz or another freq should probably do, but I doubt that after setting the output level to let's say 90dB SPL will cause any audible hiss noise when pausing the songs (from the listening position).

 

[anmpr1]

There is nothing "high fidelity" whatsoever about audible hiss. It is against everything high fidelity has been striving for for the last 70 years- the reduction of extraneous noise.

There might be a way. If you have one of these in your closet...

 

[Apesbrain]

One of those won't help if the noise originates from the speakers' internal amplifiers.

 

[Mnyb]

This is what I do to lower the background noise on my active speakers (Mackie MR6mk3):

1. Use a balanced input source and decent quality balanced interconnects (anything that is not alibaba should probably do).
2. Get few high quality recorded songs with a good dynamic and peaks pretty close to 0dB (foobar VU-meter or any editing software can tell yu that).
3. Setup computer's volume and source's volume to the max (or pretty close to the lowest THD+N setting, if you have access to such measurements).
4. With volume settings to the lowest on your active speakers, increase the volume pot. till distortions become audible (usually on the low end).

Reason for the above is simple: active speakers amplification is usually pretty high, so some background noise might be audible if their internal volume pot. is higher than actually needed. So use audio source volume pot. higher and active speakers pot. as low as possible.

Note: With my MR6mk3 the background noise during a perfectly quiet night is audible if my ears are closer than 0.5m to the tweeter.

+1 Yes you don't keep the monitor at full volume almost all powered or aktive speakers i used hiss a lot more if you do that !
I'm using a less sopisticated regime but try to achive the same thing with my computer setup I have the monitors volume or sensitivity quite low (fostex or adam is what i've used) so that i can use full volume in the OS and then have as loud is ever need but not to loud sound

 

[anmpr1]

One of those won't help if the noise originates from the speakers' internal amplifiers.

It was a joke. The idea that hiss is still a thing in 2020 isn't a joke though.

 

[AthanasiosL]

I confirm that KRK rockit 10.3 G3 has audible hiss to about 50cm distance from the tweeter while you can recognize the noise up to 1m in absolute silence. This by setting the gain to 0db. Increasing the gain increases both the noise and vice versa. Also the noise is higher in rca connected sources than balanced xlr while accompanied by some parasites. I also confirm that the phenomenon in the new KRK rockit 10.4 G4 (class d amps vs class AB) is more pronounced.

 

[majingotan]

For me it's speakers that often don't seem tonally correct, as they have uneven dispersion, and one has to deal with reflections. To get something that competes with an IEM, especially for bass and tonal balance, the going ratio for me seems to be ten to one.

I see this as a matter of subjective preference in tonality. Though I never recommend the HS7 for anything other than listening 2 feet away from tweeters and only on-axis on triangular near field setup. With this, reflections are minimized and I get to hear the lifelike (which I describe as unamplified, unbelievably spooky real sounding) tonality of the HS7 that none of the kilobuck IEMs have moved me as much. Come out of that sweet spot (aka more than 2.5 feet away from tweeters and/or off-axis then the coherency just disappears like how low fidelity speakers sound. I'll be sure to check out the JH Lola and the high end JH IEMs at CanJam SoCal this year.

 

[Lao Lu]

I think studio monitors are work horses designed to a price point.

Good point; I wonder how quiet a pair of ATC active monitors are...anybody have a pair?