Tweeters on A7, A6 hissing

ravaneli

My Pioneer AVR has the volume going from zero to 80. Around 50 hissing from the tweeters becomes audible 5 feet from the speakers. The hissing is proportional to the volume on the AVR. I am running these off my PC, and the PC can be turned off completely, but if the AVR is on, they are hissing.

Now, I had this problem in the car, with polk speakers and polk amp, and I had to turn the amp down. But they were still pretty loud after adjusting for the hissing.

These A7 towers should handle A LOT more than my miserable Pioneer AVR. There must be a setting or something that is pushing the tweeters only that I can turn off. Otherwise these towers would be unusable with more power. The thing is that AVR doesn't have that many settings. I went through everything in the manual and didn't see what could help.

It is not as pronounced as I make it sound, but I would really appreciate any help about getting rid of that.

Forgot to mention that I never noticed that hissing with the RM7 satelites, and on the towers themselves initially. But once I ran the MCACC it came very strong. The mcacc turned the EQ on for some reason, and when I turned it off the hissing got reduced drastically, but some is still there. The AVR doesn't seem to have a reset to defaul button..

heiney9

It's not the speakers. Sounds like the receiver and/or source. Short of buying a new receiver, not much you can do. EQ's add noise even if it's the built in one in an HT AVR.

H9

specd_out

I have done some reading after acquiring a Carver amp and those amps tend to his as a trait, but it becomes more pronounced with high efficient speaker such as the the A7 (i have a5). These speakers maybe more efficient then your satellites, which is why you notice it more.

I would also check you cables, make sure nothing runs with power cables, across them is fine if you have no choice.

disconnect the computer completely, see what happens

Whats the quality of the connection between the Pc and the Receiver

Those speakers can handle far more then the Pioneer, what you are hearing is an imperfection somewhere on the electronics side

cnh

Carvers "hiss"? Really? I thought those were supposed to be on the warm side of things?

And, in theory, a good match for the Rti-A series!

cnh

pitdogg2

I have had Carver TFM25/TFM45 since new never any hiss until they needed to have some work done. Mine are both DEAD quite.

ravaneli

SPDIF from my HT Omega Claro sound card to the receiver. Computer can be unplugged altogether with no difference.

The speaker wires to run near the power outlet and the power strip, but there is really no solution around that in my room. I might be able to pull everything in the middle of the room just for a moment to check if there's power interference.

The other drivers are silent. Only the tweeters are hissing. If you play anything the hissing is not audible, but between the songs it is, especially if the volume is up.

Once u notice it and get fixated about it.. you know how it eats you..

pitdogg2

well it's coming from somewhere. I can turn my carver C16 pre all the way up and still hear no hiss what so ever. My gear is Sony ES cd player Carver TFM45 to SDA 1's no hiss nota.....

heiney9

Generally a soundcard out to a receiver is a bad idea, raises the noise floor. In your case it's the receiver, so either live with it since it's not an issue when playing music or look for another receiver. Sounds like that is your only choice. The new speakers are probably more efficient (as someone else already stated) and the drivers and x-overs are better so while your old speakers were masking the hiss, the new ones aren't. Not a fault of the speakers.

H9

pitdogg2

should of read the first post better my bad....carry on

ravaneli

This is not about a fault of the speaker. Speakers only play what is transferred to them.

I am hoping someone else had similar issue and how did he fix it. The luckiest solution would be if I can just change any of the settings on the receiver. I guess the next luckiest would be using different wires or wiring configuration or something.

I am absolutely loving the RTi speakers currently. I found that this toe-in of the towers that someone here recommended is definitely BAD for A7s. It exacerbates the brightness and in-your-face-ness. Now the tower look straight forward and my spot in the middle is a bliss to my ears. I suspect I have minor hearing loss as well from the constant base in all my cars throughout my 20s. Also people tell me I am loud very often. Whatever the reason, I simply love the RTis.

That hissing... I will figure it out, I promise, but if any of you can help.. : )

pitdogg2

ravaneli wrote: »

I suspect I have minor hearing loss as well from the constant base in all my cars throughout my 20s. Also people tell me I am loud very often. Whatever the reason, I simply love the RTis.

That hissing... I will figure it out, I promise, but if any of you can help.. : )

well then maybe the hiss is all in your head or ears.

By the way it's BASS not base:rolleyes:

I believe Heiney9 hit it on the head. your sound card raised the noise floor and had introduced some other noise.

ravaneli

No, turning off the AVR stops the hissing in my head hehe

As for the sound card, I believe you are half right. A sound card generally introduces another level of processing which only introduces new noise in the source. However given that I can't just plug the internet cable in the AVR and I need some kind of a processor to feed the internet signal to the receiver. And in that regard my sound card is a million years ahead of the built-in motherboard cheap-fish realtec soundcard. See, if you use a computer you will use a sound card, or have no audio signal : )

I really recommend my sound card. It creates almost artificial sensation for clarity. Very impressive.

heiney9

ravaneli wrote: »

See, if you use a computer you will use a sound card, or have no audio signal : )

I really recommend my sound card. It creates almost artificial sensation for clarity. Very impressive.

No, that's not at all true,

Wireless streaming from an ethernet connected router or USB are miles ahead of a computer soundcard, if implemented properly.

Soundcards and wired connections are so 42 seconds ago

The way you are doing it adds the most noise into the system.

H9

tonyb

You maybe on to something there, at least thats the first place I'd look. Possibly a combo of soundcard and cabling.

pyrocyborg

@ravaneli

I am experiencing tinnitus since 2 years ago. I now hear a constant "hiss" in my both ears, and it is exacerbated when listening to very high frequencies which the RTi seems to reproduce a lot, too much to a certain extent. I couldn't use any kind of toe-in with my RTi, it was making my head ringing and caused me fatigue after few minutes. Now, with my LSi7, I'm just fine. I still have my tinnitus, but at least my speakers doesn't increase it.

Anyways, for my part, what I did to reduce the hissing was, first of all, to try to find a physical culprit: hissing may be caused by receiver/source, or by reflective surfaces like mirrors and windows. You should try to move ever mirror out of the area, and cover your windows with curtains. As the RTi tends to throw a lot of high frequencies, it can create some sibiliance if your environment isn't "friendly" (i.e., if it's reflective by nature). As soon as I covered everything, it wasn't as bad as before.

If possible, I would recommand wired streaming if you do use a media server (ignore this message if you don't). Wireless is prone to a lot of reception failures, disconnection and such if you're in a place where there is a lot of wireless devices already (if your zone is overcrowded already). My sound is way better from my PC to PS3 since I use wired versus wireless, as long as you use quality ethernet cables.

jbooker82

What about if you try changing the avr to a source that is not used. Then turn the volume up.

ravaneli

The only thing that is connecting my PC and the AVR is that thin SPDIF cable. You can remove it so there is no source attached to the AVR at all, and there is still hissing. If the avr volume is down to 35, the hissing kind of disapears, but I like to listen from 50 to 55 on my favorite songs for a good kick from the 7" woofers. Then the hissing is audible in the pause between the songs.

My ears don't really hiss, it is more like a high pitch teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Yeah, no toe-in for me either. The other negative effect of toe-in was some very weir bass cancellation. When I opened them all of a sudden I started feeling kicks at my chair that I never felt before. These speaker have such large soundstage, toe-in is not necessary to start with. Perhaps for some little bookies..

jbooker82

When I have my Onkyo set to a source that is not hooked up I can turn it up to 82 (referance 0db) and I get a super faint buzz. You have to have your ear next to the tweeter to even hear it. It gets slightly louder with the dial maxed out. There is no way you would even hear it with them playing audio.

By the way that is also with my Carver Amp.

ravaneli

So here is what I discovered, and how I remedied the problem somewhat.

The gain on the AVR was set to 0 db, which was pushing the tweeters even at low volume on the dial (50).

I set the gain all the way to (-15). Now the hissing is not audible from my chair or even close to the speaker. If I put my ear right next to the tweeter though, I can still hear it.

The drawback is that now my AVR cant push the lower drivers as well as before and I can't listen to music as loud.

Played with the wiring a bit, moved the towers up so the wires don't go near anything power, but that had no effect. The only thing that had effect was the gain on the AVR. Now I need to borrow a high quality AVR from someone to confirm that hissing will not be present with better equipment.

tonyb

I doubt it's the avr. By lowering the speaker levels that much, all your doing is making the receiver work that much harder to get up to certain SPL'S. Look at your cabling and your source, cdp, bdp, cable box. Your only addressing the volume of the hiss, not the problem of it.

Ric5811

Run Carver Amp, Arcam pre/pro, from my SPDIF, no noise or hiss on my A7's, 5jr+ or Tsi 100's. Dead quiet. Sometimes particular placement of soundcard in the PC will generate noise. I'm not familiar with yours. From experience, my old pc generated noise (small hiss) because of soundcard placement.