Ics contributing to speaker hiss

jayman_1975

I have recently acquired a couple new to me amps and am getting used to them. They sound fantastic.....when the music starts. Otherwise I can hear a humm from both amps. I have researched this and the general consensus is that these amps humm and there's nothing that can be done about it.

I could live with that except I also have a hiss coming through my speakers that's audible from my listening position when the music stops. I have done some experimenting and it seems the hiss is far worse when I have one brand of IC hooked up vs another brand. Strangely enough the much cheaper cables are the ones emitting less hiss.

I get this hiss when the cables are hooked up to the amp only, as well as when hooked up to the amp and preamp.

Has anyone ever had this issue? The cheaper cables sound pretty good to me compared to the more expensive ones so I'm considering just going to these but I need 2 more pairs and I can't find them anywhere now and I just dropped a few bucks on the better cables so I feel I wasted money if I don't use them.

BlueFox

Do the amps hiss without the IC cables attached, but, obviously, with the speaker cables attached? Also, do both amps have the same issue?

dannylightning

can you test the ground on your electrical socked in your house.. i seem to remember a ground problem causing a hiss at one time.

it could be something with the audio source.. do you have another audio source you can try..

tonyb

I might suggest one cable lets more of the signal thru than the other, thus you hearing more hiss. Not a bad thing if you were to consider the hiss is present in the signal, not the cable.

Following that logic, one would look at source components', quality of recordings, and power conditioning for dirty juice feeding everything. Possibly a bad cable somewhere else in the chain also.

jayman_1975

BlueFox wrote: »

Do the amps hiss without the IC cables attached, but, obviously, with the speaker cables attached? Also, do both amps have the same issue?

The hiss goes away when I unhook the Ics. Yes both amps do it.....it's just a trait of these PS Audio 200c and 200cx. Fabulous sound, it's worth putting up with a little humm and hiss that's really only noticable when the music stops. I just happened to notice that one set of cables minimized the hiss and I couldn't really tell any loss in quality.

jayman_1975

dannylightning wrote: »

can you test the ground on your electrical socked in your house.. i seem to remember a ground problem causing a hiss at one time.

it could be something with the audio source.. do you have another audio source you can try..

I don't really know how to test the ground on my socket but I just had the dedicated 20amp line run by my electrician last year so I don't think it's that. I tried plugging it in a different socket on a different line and it does the same thing.

The hiss is present as soon as I plug the ICs into the amp, regardless of being plugged into the pre. It's just about like they act like an antenna

BlueFox

Do they also have balanced (XLR) connections? If so can you try that.

jayman_1975

BlueFox wrote: »

Do they also have balanced (XLR) connections? If so can you try that.

Just single ended on these amps sadly.