sony nw-hd3 and background hiss

i have a hd3 and have tried expensive earphones, the supplied earphones and even pc speakers and not found any hiss at all even at high volumes.
 
watchinthewheel said:
i have a hd3 and have tried expensive earphones, the supplied earphones and even pc speakers and not found any hiss at all even at high volumes.

yes but follow my instructions, turn the volume to ZERO, then play a track and u will hear a hiss that only goes away as the volume is turned up. the hiss is always there it is just inaudible at normal volumes
 
just tried that and couldnt hear anything. just a normal background noise, and if its THAT quiet why does it matter anyway? if it goes away when you play anything at a regular voulme just dont turn the sound down to listen to it.
 
watchinthewheel said:
just tried that and couldnt hear anything. just a normal background noise, and if its THAT quiet why does it matter anyway? if it goes away when you play anything at a regular voulme just dont turn the sound down to listen to it.

u are correct, it is irrelevent basically. as the volume is slowly turned up the background noise remains as the music drowns it out. but bottom line is its normal and doesnt matter anyway.
 
washout said:
u are correct, it is irrelevent basically. as the volume is slowly turned up the background noise remains as the music drowns it out. but bottom line is its normal and doesnt matter anyway.

Well, it may matter if you listen to music with quiet passages, such as most of the classical music genre. The background hiss is evident and may even be disturbing if you are sensitive for unwanted noise.

However, I just received my HD1 back from the Sony service center to where I had sent it to be upgraded to the new firmware. At the same time, I also asked them to check the background hiss issue.

The reply was that the unit functions perfectly normally. According to the service center, the hiss is caused by the electronics generating a stray leakage, which is picked up by the DA converter (?) in the unit. (Or something like that, I am not a electronics guru, sorry).

Apparently it is the same on *every* HD1 and HD3 manufactured. If you can't hear it, is just because you either use less sensitive phones or have less sensitive ears.

I sampled two other units (a HD1 and a HD3) in the shop and they both had the same noise. Well, at least the riddle is solved. Not to my full satisfaction, but there it is. I would think that Sony deliberately refrains from specifying the signal to noise ratio on the spec sheet for this very reason.

Tom
 
washout said:
i bought 2 hd1s and have concluded all hd1/hd3 hiss at low volumes. to check lower the volume to zero with a track playing and u will hear a hiss for sure even on the original earphones. ALL HD1S HISS. make no mistake, the fact that the music drowns out this hiss is fine, but they ALL hiss.


Sorry but you are plain wrong. I have a HD1 with MDR-E888SP's and wether low or high volume there is no hiss on a silent track. Maybe you are using mp3s and not atrac files? Because I know a lot of mp3's are quite poor quality and have noise throughout.

Edit: just then I found a track with a long slient section (fisherspooner-ersatz with minutes of slience before a hidden track) and druing the silence i could not hear a thing from the HD1 even at max volume. For the record the track was recored in atrac3 132kbps
 
I'm not sure if i have a hiss or not!!!!

I use the EX71's

Think there can be some background noise when not playing anything.

But if theres a pause in a piece of music i can here no hiss at all!

When people say hiss are we talking major or minor, if i had'nt read forums i would'nt be trying to look out for a hiss and defenitly not detect it.
 
Got my HD-HW3 today from amazon and absolutely NO HISS watsover! The unit is awesome, can i say DEATH TO IPOD!
 
mariahcarey said:
Got my HD-HW3 today from amazon and absolutely NO HISS watsover! The unit is awesome, can i say DEATH TO IPOD!

I agree, the player is awesome (and I suppose you mean the NW-HD3).

But a certain amount of hiss exists on every unit - I just had this fact confirmed from the Sony service center. It is apparently normal and the amount of hiss depends on what earphones you are using. The EX71's for instance bring it out really well, while with other phones it's not that obvious.

If you can't hear the hiss, it's because of your earphones or your ears. You might also have a one-off magic NW-HD3 without hiss but those must be very rare. The three units I tried (including my own HD1) had the very same amount of hiss, which makes it likely to me that the Sony service center guy wasn't just lying...

Anywhoo, I still love my HD1 - even more now that it's been upgraded to the HD3! Yay!

Tom
 
I have a HD3 and there is definitely a Hiss. It doesn't matter if you are playing Atrac or MP3, the cosmic noise is always there. I don't care what Sony say, they are selling a defective product and should come up with a solution. I wonder if the new HD5 will have the same problem

Bill
 

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