Hi all. Read some articles online as to why hiss happens and what might be causing it from my 5 speaker setup. I have a sony HTIB that's about 6-7 years old. I can hear an audible hiss coming from it that gets louder as the volume is turned up. Doesn't matter if the source is TV/cable, PS2, xbox360. I'm not such an audiophile that I have my head pressed against the speakers. You can hear it a couple feet away no problem. Also, I recently upgraded the front tiny cube speakers, to some nice Polk RT50's, and the hiss is still there, just MORE crisp and clear sounding, lol. I really don't think it's the speakers fault on this. I've tried removing anything else on this electrical outlet or nearby. (fish tank filter) and nothing changed. I also reduced the channel gain/level db's on the receiver and there was no hiss volume/tone change either. I've ordered a surge protector with line conditioner/filter, but I think that's mostly for feedback hum and whine, not hiss. My outlets are all grounded and the home is only a couple years old so I don't think it's outdated/bad wiring. Do you think it's just the receiver is kaput? I'm going to borrow a friends few year old yahmaha receiver to try and see what happens soon, but I don't have the $$$ to get a nice Onkyo on Denon anytime soon. Hoping I can stretch out the life of this guy, but if he has to go, i'll send him packing. Thanks!
all amplifiers make some noise.. it seems like your input stages before the volume control are the culprits .. find teh schematics and see what the common parts for the section immediately before the volume control are.. chances are it's a pretty cheap 8 or 16 leg ic (op amp) which may well be used with a sliding bias for the actual volume circuitry.. chances are it's been like this since new and you just haven't noticed.. or they can become progressively more noisy as the amplifier elements age.. in either case replacing the suspect component (s) is a possibility.. or not.. depending on economics and feasibility of repair. just to confirm.. hiss isn't a power supply or earthing problem.. it's an inherent fault of any amplifying device (schottky noise/partition noise) caused by the passage of electrons through a medium and arriving at their destination.. after all.. they are discrete charged particles.. think of hail on a roof XD
I gotcha. I figured it is the receivers fault. I'm not about to hunt through docs and figure out capacitors and such, it was a decent, but entry level sony HTIB, so i'm sure they didn't make it as heavy duty as other receivers. I'm gonna borrow a friends receiver to test it out. I don't mind that I ordered a better surge protector because it has line filtering and coax inputs also. I'm sure it can't hurt and will keep my home theater better off anyway. Thanks for the info about it!
All's good.. if you find the schematics anywhere online I will point fingers at a few suspects for you. It isn't unknown for decoupling capacitors between stages to become noisy.. but these days discrete components are rather rare.. most modern stuff seems to have about 5 big chips and nearly nothing else stuck on a board inside. Often people get new speakers and an amp which seemed fine before turns out to make a lot of hiss and noise.. not the fault of the better speakers.. they just show it up by being more sensitive and precise. Your old ones probably don't sound as bad I use proper old hi-fi amps run 2 or 3 way split on my sounds at home.. but none of this 5.1 junk for me.. I only have 2 ears XD .. for the price you can get them for these days it might be worth looking at a few good old technics (or better even.. though I like technics gear.. good quality and common as muck) amps and a good quality line level output decoder instead... with real quality speakers for at least some of the channels.
Two of the cheapest receivers, that can handle the new technology, and has enough inputs for most people, are the Onkyo TX-SR606 and Yamaha RX-V663. Amazon.com usually has them for a very good price. With new models coming soon, these two might be running a little short on availability. You may even find a deal on a good receiver on Craig's List. I'd start saving my money, and looking for something, if I were you........... Good luck!
