Hissing Problem

[MikeC]

I only post here when I have a problem Guess that doesn't make me much of an audioholic but I do appreciate the help I receive here.

I have an Onkyo HTR340 AV Surround System. It sounds great when it is in two speaker stereo mode; but, when I turn on the surround, I get a hiss in all speakers, and sometimes a little crackle. It diminishes somewhat when it's been on a while but not to the point where it goes away. I changed the speaker wire to use a thinner wire, which did not help. Initially had a larger wire. I thought that maybe it didn't have enough power for the wires so I changed 'em up. No change. It does it on all speaker stereo as well, not just surround

Not sure what to do here...

Mike.

 

[Haoleb]

A small amount of hiss from the tweeters is normal in most amplifiers. You'll find that as you go up in quality (and therefore price) the hiss you hear is reduced or eliminated. Crackles are not normal however.

Also. A smaller speaker wire will actually do more harm than good. The most significant specification of speaker wire is resistance. A smaller gauge wire (higher number) will have MORE resistance and therefore be taking more power from your recievers amplifier. Keep in mind however that the amount of power lost in wire is as small as makes no difference in a standard setup. The only reason you would want to use a smaller gauge wire is when you cant fit the large gauge in the speaker connectors.

Anything from 12-16 gauge would be fine for a regular home theater setup. Most people use 12 because its readily available, big enough for any use and will fit in most speaker connectors. You probably wont be able to use 12 gauge with that onkyo setup and usually with those type of systems they give you speaker wire to use which will be fine for your needs.

 

[TLS Guy]

I only post here when I have a problem Guess that doesn't make me much of an audioholic but I do appreciate the help I receive here.

I have an Onkyo HTR340 AV Surround System. It sounds great when it is in two speaker stereo mode; but, when I turn on the surround, I get a hiss in all speakers, and sometimes a little crackle. It diminishes somewhat when it's been on a while but not to the point where it goes away. I changed the speaker wire to use a thinner wire, which did not help. Initially had a larger wire. I thought that maybe it didn't have enough power for the wires so I changed 'em up. No change. It does it on all speaker stereo as well, not just surround

Not sure what to do here...

Mike.

Can you hear the hiss from your listening position, or just if you put your ear against the tweeter?

 

[highfihoney]

You say there is no hiss when your in 2 channel mode,are you talking about 2 channel L & R front speakers or 2.1 which is L & R front + subwoofer.

If your talking about no hiss when using only the L & R fronts without using the subwoofer i'd say the problem lie's within your subwoofer,the subwoofer could have a feedback issue,ground problem,RFI interference,connection problem ect.

The first thing i'd try would be to disconnect the subwoofer from the system & try all the different settings,then if there is no hiss you know the problem lie's within the subwoofer itself or the external wiring, then you can begin to check the possible causes comming from the subwoofer, one at a time.