In the past I have never linked the many conversations I have seen about ‘Hiss’ in other systems. I’ll try to do this if I have time a bit in the future. It might be intreasting for those that do have the time and like to crunch specs when I can access model #’s to see if the Noise Floor manuf.listed on each of these models equals out to the SPL reading that some find in their own home systems.

Here’s Greg S setup: http://home.earthlink.net/~kfscoll/
And here’s what he said about his hiss when talking to another guy who had hiss in his Marantz.
“Let me know if you ever found a solution or if you just concluded that the hiss was "normal." The shop where I purchased my receiver from tells me that the hiss is simply the nature of the beast.
FWIW, my speakers are Klipsch References, which are extremely efficient and which tend to pick up the slightest bit of noise.”

“With the DVD input selected and the receiver set to "Analog Direct" mode, the level of hiss, though clearly audible at max gain, wasn't measurable (both A- and C-weighted, fast and slow), which means it was at most 50 dB at one inch from my tweeter at max gain. The CD input's level of hiss with the same receiver settings is even less. However, if I turn on any type of digital signal processing (DPL-II, dts-neo:6, etc.) when the receiver is in analog input mode, the noise floor raises significantly...I measured 71 dB at one inch from the tweeter. However, I suspect that's just what you get when you try to apply DSP to an analog signal, and it's easy to get around...only use DSP on digital signals! When I do that, the noise floor doesn't raise at all. In order to test the DSP noise floor with digital signals, though, I had to find a low-level digital source to compare to, because the receiver mutes its output when it can't detect a digital signal. So, I found a very low-level digital signal (I have a CD where several minutes of near-silence were recorded), and when I applied a DSP mode to this digital signal, the noise floor didn't raise at all -- completely different from the DSP's effect on analog signals.”

And here is a Chris T’s thoughts on the subject back to Greg S.
“I'd say that hiss is normal
Total hiss depends on the noise and condition of all the equiptment. It also includes any line noise that can be caused by lamps and appliances on the same circuit. And also be interference that wires/cables pick up from transformers and such. At max gain I get 55db measured 1 inch from my tweeter. This is on a sound card analog out and separate rotel amplification. If the layer of hiss bothers you during movies, then I'd consider it a time to isolate the problem. If the tweeter hisses at max volume then I don't think you should worry.”