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Nice Studio Monitors without Hiss?

proxima

proxima

Senior Member
So I'm looking for new studio monitors, but with a particular quirk: I really hate the amp hiss/white noise that many (most?) active monitors have, even without inputs. Hum would be even worse, though the monitors currently in that space have no hum. It's just a very quiet room and I'm annoyed by hissing noise when they're not actively playing sound.

Given some convincing, my budget is up to about $1500, which I admit is influenced by the cost of Adam A7Xs. As best I can tell from some googling around, they are rather prone to a white noise hiss. I've also taken a look at Dynaudio BM5 mk iiis (at the other end of my price range), and they too are quite prone to hiss.

The easy answer is that I need to find some showroom with everything set up and listen for myself, but at least in the case of Adam dealers, the nearest one is a non-trivial drive. So I was hoping I could get some pointers about where to look. Maybe the answer is passive monitors? That makes the shopping more complicated, but I'd appreciate any pointers there as well. Or maybe the answer is just to suck it up and get used to it. I confess to keeping my current hissy monitors off almost all the time for this reason.

Thanks!
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This ought to be an easy criterion to satisfy, but yes it does require some first hand experience to navigate those waters.

I have the Focal CMS65, which are mighty fine hissless monitors.
 
Most speakers should be OK but it obviously depends on the noise floor of your room and how far you are from the speakers. In my room I have some JBL 705p's which I can hear hissing from about 1m away but my room is exceptionally quite (soundproofed room underground with speaker hiss being the only thing that makes noise in the room...) and I'd say they are quieter that most speakers. The 305 are probably about as quiet as most. I think the Dynaudio Bm5 mk3 are a little louder that other speakers around.
 
Gerhard Westphalen said:
Most speakers should be OK but it obviously depends on the noise floor of your room and how far you are from the speakers. In my room I have some JBL 705p's which I can hear hissing from about 1m away but my room is exceptionally quite (soundproofed room underground with speaker hiss being the only thing that makes noise in the room...) and I'd say they are quieter that most speakers. The 305 are probably about as quiet as most. I think the Dynaudio Bm5 mk3 are a little louder that other speakers around.
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Yes, the distance is an issue. In my current setup I'll be within 1m, though some monitors hiss so much I can hear them from 3m away in a quiet room.
 
proxima said:
Yes, the distance is an issue. In my current setup I'll be within 1m, though some monitors hiss so much I can hear them from 3m away in a quiet room.
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The problem with the Dynaudios is that they have a bit of a high frequency buzz instead of just something closer to white noise. I'm not sure how the newer generation is.

You should mention what you have now as they can potentially be noisier than everything else around. Conversely, they might be quieter than everything else and you'll never be happy.

I'd stay away from passive speakers. If you do get passive speakers then you'll need to either build an L-pad or get an amp with a gain knob on it like a Parasound otherwise you'll probably end up with more noise than on most active monitors.
 
Gerhard Westphalen said:
You should mention what you have now as they can potentially be noisier than everything else around. Conversely, they might be quieter than everything else and you'll never be happy.

I'd stay away from passive speakers. If you do get passive speakers then you'll need to either build an L-pad or get an amp with a gain knob on it like a Parasound otherwise you'll probably end up with more noise than on most active monitors.
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I have Presonus Eris E5s, a highly disappointing choice on so many levels.
 
Would a brand like EVE Audio remove the hissing, given they use a different signal chain internally than most other monitors?
I've not noticed any hiss on mine, but they are further away and not in a quiet environment, and I haven't listened specifically for that.
I'll have to listen closely when get home.
 
I would think this is something you need to test out first hand yourself... anecdotes are well and fine but you never know if the person on the other end is not experiencing a hiss that is in fact noticeable to you for whatever myriad of reasons.
 
proxima said:
So I'm looking for new studio monitors, but with a particular quirk: I really hate the amp hiss/white noise that many (most?) active monitors have, even without inputs. Hum would be even worse, though the monitors currently in that space have no hum. It's just a very quiet room and I'm annoyed by hissing noise when they're not actively playing sound.

Given some convincing, my budget is up to about $1500, which I admit is influenced by the cost of Adam A7Xs. As best I can tell from some googling around, they are rather prone to a white noise hiss. I've also taken a look at Dynaudio BM5 mk iiis (at the other end of my price range), and they too are quite prone to hiss.

The easy answer is that I need to find some showroom with everything set up and listen for myself, but at least in the case of Adam dealers, the nearest one is a non-trivial drive. So I was hoping I could get some pointers about where to look. Maybe the answer is passive monitors? That makes the shopping more complicated, but I'd appreciate any pointers there as well. Or maybe the answer is just to suck it up and get used to it. I confess to keeping my current hissy monitors off almost all the time for this reason.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have a pair of Yamaha HS 80s, so fairly standard monitors, and I have never heard any hiss or background noise.I sit at 2 meters.
These monitors are excellent for the price.
Take a test in store.
 
Since a few weeks we have a pair of IK Multimedia iLoud MTM's.
They are totally quiet, don't hear any hiss at all from 1m near-field distance. Definitely an improvement over some other "famous" monitors with build-in class-D amps.

Apart from that they just sound awesome. Or better said: they don't "sound" at all, very neutral. And the bass is also amazing, haven't felt the need to hook up a subwoofer :)
 
Just to reiterate what a few others have said, people saying they don't hear any hiss is probably more due to how far away and what environment they are listening in than the actual speakers. All powered speakers will have hiss.

You really need to go listen in store, and listen up close to them to compare. Even then you might want to listen to the actual pair of speakers you buy if you really are sensitive to this, as the hiss could vary between speakers of the same model. It's the nature of electronics.
 
Iswhatitis said:
Save your money and get JBL 308s the version II have no hum or noise and sound great. Plus what are people listening to in theaters, JBL. The 308s were just on sale for $135 each on musiciansfriend and Amazon. For the money you could get a 5.1 setup too. I have Genelec 1030a which are awesome, but for the money you cannot beat the 308.
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My JBL 308 MK2s hiss like crazy.

Also, OP, are you the Proxima? DnB extraordinaire?
 
KallumS said:
My JBL 308 MK2s hiss like crazy.

Also, OP, are you the Proxima? DnB extraordinaire?
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My 305(first gen) also hiss really bad now and the main reason I'm looking for something different. When I first got them the hiss was only audible if you put your ear to them but in the last year, I think I'm going on 5 years now with the 305's the hiss has gotten worse. I work in the A/V industry and am lucky enough to have access to a coworker who has done repairs for every type of audio and video equipment you can think of for the last 30 years. People come to him all the time with vintage gear. He was a bit dumbfounded by the hiss, because contrary to popular belief, Class D amps are actually very quiet so the next logical thing to look for was noisy pots (volume control) but that wasn't it so we think it might be the op amps JBL used in these that just degraded over time but we're both so busy he hasn't had time to crack them open and I still need to use them for mixing so I deal with it for now.
Point is, when I hear reviews that talk about a noticeable hiss ,like I hear about on the Adam A7X, I shy away but not because I don't think the hiss will be bearable when I first get them, like they were with my JBL 305's new, but I'm concerned at how much worse they will get over time.
 
Thanks everyone for your thoughts and suggestions.

I was able to listen to two contenders, the A7Xs and Yamaha HS8s just at the local GC. The room wasn't very well set up, but the A7Xs both sounded great and I could only hear hiss from inches away. Of course, put in a quieter setting, who knows, but I think I'll order them and see for myself.

@pderbidge, that's an interesting and concerning thought. At this point I'm hoping they'll be much quieter than what I have and stay inaudible from 1m.
 
Gerhard Westphalen said:
I'd stay away from passive speakers. If you do get passive speakers then you'll need to either build an L-pad or get an amp with a gain knob on it like a Parasound otherwise you'll probably end up with more noise than on most active monitors.
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Not sure why you have the impression that passive would be worse. As long as you have a good clean amp and keep your speaker wires shielded from power cables then I don't see them being any more problematic than a powered speaker. In fact, I would prefer passive speakers so that I don't have to change them out just because of a bad amp. I think the real advantage, however, of powered monitors today is the built in DSP handling of the crossover. I think there are things that can be done with modern day dsp technology that can't be done with traditional crossovers.
 
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