Why active speakers cannot easily get rid of hiss like laptop speakers or very tiny speakers?

[Salt]

Remember an amplifier a returned that produced a tic randomly...afterwards I became aware it was the refrigerator's on and off relay via mains....
Strange things can happen.

 

[RobL]

To build on @MaxwellsEq post - active speakers power amp is on at full volume all the time. You are expected to turn down the volume using a preamp. And is MUCH more powerful than small bluetooth or laptop amplifiers. So any noise is going through full amplification.

Also - how are you connecting to the active speakers. If unbalanced analogue then almost certainly a lot of the hiss is coming in on the ground of the analogue input.

This!^^^
Turn your power amp gain fully up on your passive speakers and listen…same hiss will be there. Active monitors have to run their amps wide open as they could receive many different input signal levels depending on configuration.

 

[superbluecat]

As people get older they gradually lose hearing ability... The lowest hearing floor may go from minus to zero db to 20 and even 30 db? And frequency range also drops. That's why a number of people do not hear any hiss even at close distance.

For me I am still young. But I can only hear up to 17kHz unlike babies 20 kHz.
But I am sure I can hear some level within 0-10db.

 

[superbluecat]

So I personally think zero-noise is still meaningful for hyper-near-field listening. Especially for PC field

May I guess that audio techs are not catching up with the booming improvement of Intel Nvidia and AMD lol? Monitors have got gsync to replace vsync, and 4k 160Hz nano/fast ips with miniled to catch up with the strongest gaming graphics card. Keyboard/Mice gets new sensor and swtiches and 2.4G protocol...

 

[LTig]

Kind of amplifier-tinnitus?

No, just physics.

 

[slaweks]

This!^^^
Turn your power amp gain fully up on your passive speakers and listen…same hiss will be there. Active monitors have to run their amps wide open as they could receive many different input signal levels depending on configuration.

I have just done it - no hiss.

 

[slaweks]

But you are saying "don't buy active speakers", like silent ones don't exist. That's not true. So you can criticise, but it's imprecise to throw around blanket statements like that, without even adding "for nearfield applications" or something like that. And even then it would be somewhat weird since roughly 100% of professional studios do exactly that. Some are plagued with hiss of course, many are not.

I said that, it was a reminder for myself. I cant' stand a hiss, so the idea that the highly regarded 8351 can hiss, and other active spekers do it too, and it is quite "normal" was rather unexpected to me.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

So I personally think zero-noise is still meaningful for hyper-near-field listening. Especially for PC field

You have received several detailed explanations here, including many that point out that some active speakers don't hiss. This is an opportunity for you to learn the difference between low power / all-in-one systems (laptops, Alexa) and powerful devices which have to deal with a potentially wide range of source output levels.

May I guess that audio techs are not catching up with the booming improvement of Intel Nvidia and AMD lol? Monitors have got gsync to replace vsync, and 4k 160Hz nano/fast ips with miniled to catch up with the strongest gaming graphics card. Keyboard/Mice gets new sensor and swtiches and 2.4G protocol

Now you demonstrate a lack of understanding since here you are comparing cheese to meteorites. Sure, it would be great if every downwind line-level device always put out a standard max level (say 4V), but that won't solve older devices. But noise is constrained by devices operating at room temperature and atomic and electron activity, or Jupiter and the Sun etc. Inventing some cool sync protocol can't change that.

 

[dasdoing]

My speaker manual says this for the power supply: "SMPS - 100 to 240 VAC rms"
I wonder if transforming my house voltage of 127V down to 100V would bring amp hiss down? probably not right?

 

[Salt]

It's not voltage You have to degrade, it's the frequency (have 60 Hz, not 50?, what a pitty). If You can transform it down to zero, all hiss is off .

 

[dasdoing]

If You can transform it down to zero, all hiss is off

wow, that worked. Unplugged the cable and hiss is gone lol

 

[antcollinet]

It's not voltage You have to degrade, it's the frequency (have 60 Hz, not 50?, what a pitty). If You can transform it down to zero, all hiss is off .

Mains frequency is hum, not hiss. Hiss will normally be wideband noise.

 

[LTig]

My speaker manual says this for the power supply: "SMPS - 100 to 240 VAC rms"
I wonder if transforming my house voltage of 127V down to 100V would bring amp hiss down? probably not right?

No. 100-240V means that the power supply can transform all AC voltages in this range into the DC voltages required by the electronics inside. Those DC voltages will be the same as long as your input AC voltage is in the specified range, hence hiss (noise from the electronics) is not affected.

 

[dasdoing]

No. 100-240V means that the power supply can transform all AC voltages in this range into the DC voltages required by the electronics inside. Those DC voltages will be the same as long as your input AC voltage is in the specified range, hence hiss (noise from the electronics) is not affected.

thanks, I imagined it would be like this; now I'm sure

 

[restorer-john]

I found out that my JBL Flip BT speaker hisses A LOT when actually playing music, but if there's no input signal it instantly mutes itself and is quiet.

Exactly. BT and most D/As will mute the output with no signal. Amplifiers in analogue active speakers are unlikely to do so.