Will:

I was talking about a different issue in the above post: it has nothing to do with hiss, as long as the calibration procedure is adhered to. If you have input volume controls on your power amps, you can try the above, and see if you like the sound better or not. In my experience, it does sound better, and the power amp is a preferrable place to do the level control for calibration.

Hi Soundhound,

The only reason I mention this is you posted that you try to listen to your new 950 with its volume under -15 and that when the volume setting is above -15 the hiss level goes up noticably as the volume increases.

Will

[This message has been edited by Will (edited January 06, 2003).]

Will:

You must have me confused with someone else - I never said I listen with the volume anywhere in particular. I listen wherever it is appropriate, usually between -20 to 00, and occasionally a bit above that.

If there was a signal it would also be more *ahem* noticable. It's all relative. Turning down the amps will turn down the noise as well. This is where the old 950 was messed up - the noise was invariant.

Soundhound:

You're right. You posted as follows

but you did not post you only listen below -15. My mistake. You are correct.

Will


[This message has been edited by Will (edited January 06, 2003).]

Charlie:

I seem to be creating more confusion than it's worth I was only saying that I find it preferrable to drive a source component a bit harder, and therefore have more output coming from the outputs of the 950 and level match at the power amp. This comes from personal experience that most op-amps sound better when passing a higher signal level than less, relatively speaking. The hiss would be the same, regardless - it doesn't matter really where the gain is comensated for. In my situation, I have a standard line level for digital full scale for CDs of +15dbu, or about 4.5 volts going to the crossovers, and match the levels at the power amps.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited January 06, 2003).]

Charlie- That's what I initially thought too, but nope. Maybe this makes it a little clearer:

Sp..LF...C....RF...RS...LS...sub
a)..-1..+1...-1....+1...+0...-3..=> Avia via coax digital; 950 levels
c)..-1..-1..-1.5..-1.5...-3...+6..=> Chesky DVD-A via 5.1 analog; 47ai settings

(Hopefully this lines up for most people.) So in this case, you can easily see the extra 10 dB for SACD/DVD-A... If I would now try to set *analog* levels with Avia DVD-V (DD) with the settings in c, the sub's level would be way too high. The DD decoders, whether in the 950 or in the 47ai, internally add 10 dB boost to the LFE level. Something like that anyway.


[This message has been edited by Kevin C Brown (edited January 06, 2003).]

I guess I skipped a step - I thought you were still talking phase differences, not levels. Too many threads.

I like how they changed this thread from "To hiss or not to hiss" to "Problem Solved".

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THIS SPACE FOR RENT!

Okay... without going back and reading everything in this thread, let's see if I have this right?

The new blue dot 950 is now very quiet AND still sounds very transparent? Is there any hiss now hearable at all?

How about the 5.1 analog input? Did they disable the always on BM, or does the unit still exhibit some double bass with the speakers all set to large and the sub on while switching the back BM switch to off?