Background silence is golden

[Out-Of-Phase]

The key is low gain, what's the gain of that amp?
Other than that it's your background noise and how sensitive are you to the freq range contribute to the common hiss and hum.

1.0x and 3.3x

 

[PENG]

1.0x and 3.3x

1.0X is 0 gain??

 

[KEW]

In the background, silence is golden.

I have a headphone amp that has an absolute pristine black background. It is dead silent. No hiss, no hum. My headphone listening experience is extremely enjoyable.

Does anyone know of a receiver or power amp out there that is dead silent at the speaker (when placing your ear to the tweeter and mid-range) at zero volume?

My greatest pet peeve in audio is audible hiss and hum.

There must be a receiver (or amp) out there that possesses a complete black background at idle with no volume.

Any ideas and experiences?

I think this is obvious, but it should be said just in case.
When you put headphones on, the experience of blocking out the ambient noise is better than you can ever expect from your room system. Even open air phones block a lot of "noise".

This is not addressing the issue of hum or hiss from your speakers at all, I just wanted to point out that I'm not sure the "full headphone background silence experience" is going to happen in your room. When I put on headphones, I'm not sure it is actually audible, but I kind of get the sense of being in a "cocoon" and sound going "dark" until the music starts! Also, when the music is playing there are no in-room echos or cabinet resonance on headphones, so the "sound of silence" is more frequent!

I have to wonder if this might be what makes the silence of your headphones great rather than hiss/hum you can hear if you put your ear at the tweeter at full volume.

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

1.0X is 0 gain??

Yes. That's the setting I use 99% of the time.

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

I think this is obvious, but it should be said just in case.
When you put headphones on, the experience of blocking out the ambient noise is better than you can ever expect from your room system. Even open air phones block a lot of "noise".

This is not addressing the issue of hum or hiss from your speakers at all, I just wanted to point out that I'm not sure the "full headphone background silence experience" is going to happen in your room. When I put on headphones, I'm not sure it is actually audible, but I kind of get the sense of being in a "cocoon" and sound going "dark" until the music starts! Also, when the music is playing there are no in-room echos or cabinet resonance on headphones, so the "sound of silence" is more frequent!

I have to wonder if this might be what makes the silence of your headphones great rather than hiss/hum you can hear if you put your ear at the tweeter at full volume.

Well said. I'd also like to add that the hiss (AVR-X4400H) from my speakers is barely audible when placing my ear next to the tweeter. It is not audible at all when listening to music, any music. In the end, I think I am asking too much of any receiver or amplifier.

 

[Verdinut]

Well said. I'd also like to add that the hiss (AVR-X4400H) from my speakers is barely audible when placing my ear next to the tweeter. It is not audible at all when listening to music, any music. In the end, I think I am asking too much of any receiver or amplifier.

if you wanted to hear a major hiss generating piece of equipment, you would have to listen to a playback on a professional open reel tape recorder before the advent of the Dolby noise reduction system. That was disturbing !

 

[Verdinut]

The hiss from a tape recording was a little bit annoying but never as much as the click and pop noise from a worn LP.

 

[snakeeyes]

The hiss from a tape recording was a little bit annoying but never as much as the click and-pop noise from a worn LP.

Ya I have zero patience for LP. Maybe they would stay clean in a sealed jukebox. LOL

 

[KEW]

Well said. I'd also like to add that the hiss (AVR-X4400H) from my speakers is barely audible when placing my ear next to the tweeter. It is not audible at all when listening to music, any music. In the end, I think I am asking too much of any receiver or amplifier.

I don't know if you have room treatments, but if you room is as live as mine, you can add treatments to suppress some of the echo and get things a little closer to the headphone experience.

 

[slipperybidness]

Well said. I'd also like to add that the hiss (AVR-X4400H) from my speakers is barely audible when placing my ear next to the tweeter. It is not audible at all when listening to music, any music. In the end, I think I am asking too much of any receiver or amplifier.

Nope, I told you, I have personally achieved dead silence on more than 1 system.

All gains maxed out, a source selected but not playing, ear just inches from the tweeter.

Ask @TLS Guy how he achieved no noise floor on his rig. I'm sure he is OCD about that!

 

[slipperybidness]

1.0X is 0 gain??

That is typically what you would call a buffer stage.

I don't quite understand the benefit on the O2 amp either!

I haven't used mine in a while, but for my cans, I was using the "high gain", which I do believe is 3.3 on mine.

The mighty wiki:
Buffer Amplifier. A buffer is a unity gain amplifier packaged in an integrated circuit. Its function is to provide sufficient drive capability to pass signals or data bits along to a succeeding stage. Voltage buffers increase available current for low impedance inputs while retaining the voltage level.

 

[PENG]

That is typically what you would call a buffer stage.

I don't quite understand the benefit on the O2 amp either!

I haven't used mine in a while, but for my cans, I was using the "high gain", which I do believe is 3.3 on mine.

The mighty wiki:
Buffer Amplifier. A buffer is a unity gain amplifier packaged in an integrated circuit. Its function is to provide sufficient drive capability to pass signals or data bits along to a succeeding stage. Voltage buffers increase available current for low impedance inputs while retaining the voltage level.

That makes sense. I do have a few headphone amp/DAC, but I never look into that spec because I only use them as external DAC. But then, as I suspected it is sort of "silent" because of the 0 to low gain.

 

[PENG]

Nope, I told you, I have personally achieved dead silence on more than 1 system.

All gains maxed out, a source selected but not playing, ear just inches from the tweeter.

Ask @TLS Guy how he achieved no noise floor on his rig. I'm sure he is OCD about that!

Again, what's you background noise? And what's the gain of the "silent" amp? Also everyone's definition of "dead silent" may be different. I am not trying debating this with or not believing anyone, just want OFP to keep in mind he may have different sensitivity, environment and "bar/reference". I might have told people some of mine gear were dead silent too..

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

Nope, I told you, I have personally achieved dead silence on more than 1 system.

All gains maxed out, a source selected but not playing, ear just inches from the tweeter.

Ask @TLS Guy how he achieved no noise floor on his rig. I'm sure he is OCD about that!

Yeah, I wish he would jump in on this thread.

 

[lovinthehd]

Nope, I told you, I have personally achieved dead silence on more than 1 system.

All gains maxed out, a source selected but not playing, ear just inches from the tweeter.

Ask @TLS Guy how he achieved no noise floor on his rig. I'm sure he is OCD about that!

Two of mine are also silent.and haven't checked all of them. Hasn't been a problem historically either.

 

[slipperybidness]

Again, what's you background noise? And what's the gain of the "silent" amp? Also everyone's definition of "dead silent" may be different. I am not trying debating this with or not believing anyone, just want OFP to keep in mind he may have different sensitivity, environment and "bar/reference". I might have told people some of mine gear were dead silent too..

Like I say, "gain maxed out". Which is obviously very ambiguous.

I would have to look up the specs on a Parasound 1206 and an Emo USP-1.

If I'm going DIY, I would tend to choose my parts to shoot towards the low end of the normal gain range. Likely target a gain of 27dB to 29dB. And, I make that choice based on the exact items that we are discussing here.

However, if I know that my source may need the extra gain to drive an amp to full output, then I may choose 32dB. I likely would not ever plan to go much higher than that though.

Adding a high quality Alps pot for DIY is likely gonna cost something like $12, and in that case it may be worth designing on the high end and know that you have the luxury to attenuate it if you need to.

 

[PENG]

Like I say, "gain maxed out". Which is obviously very ambiguous.

I would have to look up the specs on a Parasound 1206 and an Emo USP-1.

If I'm going DIY, I would tend to choose my parts to shoot towards the low end of the normal gain range. Likely target a gain of 27dB to 29dB. And, I make that choice based on the exact items that we are discussing here.

However, if I know that my source may need the extra gain to drive an amp to full output, then I may choose 32dB. I likely would not ever plan to go much higher than that though.

Adding a high quality Alps pot for DIY is likely gonna cost something like $12, and in that case it may be worth designing on the high end and know that you have the luxury to attenuate it if you need to.

I also thought 32 dB gain is a little too high, unless there is a good reason for it. My first DIY amp (would consider it dead silent too) has very low gain, the Nelson Pass 5 W amp. I just order the kit for the 25 W F5, that obviously has higher gain, but hopefully it will still be quiet.

One thing I should have mentioned too is the sensitivity of the speakers. A 100 dB/2.83V/1M Klipsch is going to be more prone to hiss than a 84.5 dB/2.83V/1m Dennis Murphy's BMR.

To summarize, at the minimum, one has to consider the following, and I am not talking about ground loop induces noise, or transformer hum.

- speaker sensitivity
- length of wires
- path of wires,
- amp gain
- amp internal layout
- amp components that could be sources of noise, such as resistors.

Noise is such a complicated issues, fortunately there are too may noisy amps out there any more. I have so many of them, and none has any sort of noise that is audible from a few inches away, even when the room is in its quietest moment.

 

[M Code]

If the loudspeakers are high sensitivity and use a hard-dome or horn-type tweeter...
Then a slight hiss may be audible when the amplifier/source are idle...
If the hiss is audible like between music tracks U have other serious system mismatch issues already posted in previously..


Just my $0.02..

 

[Verdinut]

Well said. I'd also like to add that the hiss (AVR-X4400H) from my speakers is barely audible when placing my ear next to the tweeter. It is not audible at all when listening to music, any music. In the end, I think I am asking too much of any receiver or amplifier.

In any case, you don't have to worry as long it doesn't come from a rattle snake!

 

[snakeeyes]

That's why I said if you have the Denon AVR-X7200WA, then you can just get a Monolith3, because you assign the internal amps to whatever you want. As far as I know, only the Denon flag ship AVR-X7200WA and AVR-X8500H (moot point because it has enough internal amps anyway) have this features. If you have the lower models, you cannot re-assign the 5 main channel internal amps, so if you connect a monolith to those lower model AVRs or even flag ship Yamaha to the 3 main channel pre-outs, you will not be able to run 7.1.4.

The AVR-X7200WA is really the best deal right now for that reason, as well as the strongest power supply for only 9 channel internal amp, flag ship AKM DAC, pre-amp mode, among others..

Sorry to revisit this one but I’m still thinking the Monolith 3 vs the 3 Outlaw 2200. It would be easier for me to do the Monolith 3 at 57lbs and one plug in. My 2060 would power the sides and 4 ceilings. Or.... maybe I pick up a 3070 instead and move the 2060 to another room. I really don’t plan on going beyond 5.1.4 other than adding subs.