I used to be positive the hiss did not get worse with increasing the cal or trim settings. But when SoundHound dropped by, he showed me a mode where the hiss level did indeed get worse at high volume and/or trim.

Here's how to do it: Cycle the digital select knob until it says analog. (This is *not* the same as pressing stereo bypass button to get analog. This is different.) Anyway, once the digital select knob is cycled to analog (assuming your surround mode is something digital), just increase and decrease the volume knob towards MAX and, loe and behold: there's even more hiss. Granted the hiss increase is subtle but at least on my 950, it's noticably there.