Why Is There Hiss on CD Its Digital!!
Posted by: HiFiKid on 21 January 2013
All just been playing the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss cd Raising Sand. Musically excellent, sound quality is excellent too.
With the exception of background hiss that you can hear start at the beginning and fall at the end of each track and on some even when the music is playing. On sum you can even hear humm.
On old analogue recordings I can understand it as it is tape hiss. But as all new recordings are digital on digital tape why do we still get hiss on cd's. Why don't they remove it dureing editing.
I have numerous cd's where you can hear this.
Why!!!?
"The same with people suffering from tinnitus as they don't hear it unless they think about it. "
That is currently true for me in my L ear - I hope it doesn't get worse, but I imagine it will! (When I pay attention it is absolutely awful these days - had it tested and it's -35dB in a certain frequency range with the tinnitus. 
) But as you said, I can ignore it for almost all activities, and I have tried to see if my musical enjoyment is impaired, and thus far the answer is no.
Despite what some have said above, it IS impossible to remove all hiss and NOT take out some of the musical content. Consider the following exchange in The Godfather between Abe Vigoda as SalvatoreTessio and Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen:
Tessio, "Tom...can you remove the tape hiss, for old times sake..."
Hagen: "Can't do it Sally..."
See? Tessio died for even asking...
What about digital recorded music I have heard DDD graded discs with hiss on are you telling me this has been inserted on purpose
Have a listen to this 
and this 
on CD