How to avoid hum and hiss to speakers from amps.


I am concerning about the hums and hisses from my monitors when the SET monoblock amps are hooking up directly to wall outlets since I do not have a dedicated lines.

Any suggestions from experiencing audiophiles and music lovers?
nguyenchiro

Showing 2 responses by bemopti123

Unless you have tried your system with and then without a power conditioner, you will be concerned about nothing at all. One factor to take into consideration is the sensitivity of your speakers. The more sensitive they are, the more likely they are to increase any noise that is picked along with cables, then from the amps etc... I myself I gone through a drastic set up change, from medium sensitive speakers (88db) and a powerful amp, 200 watts per channel, to a set up that is low in power: I have toyed with 9 watts set from a pair of 300Bs, then to a passive preamp/op amp(solid state) driven integrated rated at 20 watts/47 Labs Shigaraki integrated and now, I am currently running an entirely battery powered set up, the Final Music 5 and Music 6...independent from any wall/line problems. This set up goes to a 96.5 db sensitive full range horn loaded speaker. Even from the battery driven gear, I get some hiss. I need to be seriously close to the driver, my ears, I mean...there is some hiss because of the gain that the preamp provides. I believe that this may be caused due to the sensitivity of the speaker. When I ran the 20 watts/channel Shigaraki into a pair of Epos ES11, rated 89 db, crossoverless...That set up was quiet, because of the sensitivity being lower. I had to increase the volume a lot more to get decent level sound.

All this points to one fact, sensitivity of the speakers will determine what noise you will be able to hear. Of course, a combination of badly designed cables also can introduce some hum to the set up. Another factor that will add to the noise problem is the type of amp you use...a tube amp that is not properly designed or with defective tubes can be noisy.

From experience, this past 3 months, I can tell you that unless you are not careful, a sensitive set up as you plan, can pick up noise and hum problems. This past two weeks I had my share of frustrations due to a hum that my powered subwoofer produced.

I went crazy trying to pinpoint the source. I realized it was the product of three different pairs of speaker wires (different brands) as well as two different pairs of interconnects (RCA ones, from Audioquest to other sort of expensive ones.) I was finally able to reconnect the set up without the sub humming or introducing artifacts to my set up today, after having plugged in a pair of Analysis Plus speaker cables with spades/banana adapters I had laying around.

PS: By the way, I have a BPT 2.5 deluxe edition, to which everything else expect the Final Music 5/6 are connected and to be very honest, I have not noticed a major improvement as reviewers and other users have noticed. Perhaps this was due to the fact that my former set up might have been quieter than most of the other gear out there.

You should not be too concerned by something you have not experienced. If and when you set up system up, if you encounter a problem, there are ways of solving it. Expensive cables and interconnects might actually introduce, instead of resolve some noise problems.
Nice to hear from someone else who has gone the DC way, with the Finals. Steve/Brooks, can you elaborate about the type of autotransformer you use as volume control? What about the speakers.