Audible hiss from speakers - Final Update

I’m jealous, you have fabulous hearing and your musical enjoyment must be immense when you’re having a session.

The hiss is always there on Naim and I’ve had 4 different combos, all of them producing the same noise.

It could be Naim is not for you? Other hifi manufacturers suppress the hiss you hear but Naim contend this is not a good thing as it is detrimental to sound quality and they have a point.

JoexNaim posted:

I’m jealous, you have fabulous hearing and your musical enjoyment must be immense when you’re having a session.

The hiss is always there on Naim and I’ve had 4 different combos, all of them producing the same noise.

It could be Naim is not for you? Other hifi manufacturers suppress the hiss you hear but Naim contend this is not a good thing as it is detrimental to sound quality and they have a point.

Yep, it would basically be the same effect as putting attenuators on your amp which def. kills the naim excitement. The hiss annoys me as well .. but only from time to time as I have gotten used to it, so far, a small price to pay for the sound I get out of my system.

I must admit that I only hear hiss with my ears close to tweeters. In my normal listening position and walking around the room I can’t hear it at all. Perhaps age is actually working in my favour for once

Much  more noise intrusion from sheep, horses and cows in nearby fields and steam whistles from the Bluebell Railway. Ah the tranquility of the countryside!

Ravenswood10 posted:

I must admit that I only hear hiss with my ears close to tweeters. In my normal listening position and walking around the room I can’t hear it at all. Perhaps age is actually working in my favour for once

Much  more noise intrusion from sheep, horses and cows in nearby fields and steam whistles from the Bluebell Railway. Ah the tranquility of the countryside!

I agree, any hiss should only be audible with ears close to the speakers - not from the listening position. At least that's my own experience with all Naim amps I've had (Nait 5s/si, XS2, SN2, 200/202).

Most high end hifi gear costing serious amounts of money either hums, buzzes, or hisses. How can it be considered best sound quality when you can hear hissing or buzzing when listening to music?

Listening to Benchmark AHB2 power amp with Chord Hugo TT Pre/DAC you can hear zilch, nothing, just silence, and superb sound quality. No humming, no buzzing, no hissing. You can even put your ear close, still nothing.

There's no humming, buzzing or hissing* coming from any of my Naim systems.  

*OK, I can hear a light hiss if I put my ears right by the tweeters on my SL2s and n-Sats (no hissing from my Kans - maybe the tweeters have had better days...??) but otherwise nothing when there's no music playing.

Richard Dane posted:

There's no humming, buzzing or hissing* coming from any of my Naim systems.  

*OK, I can hear a light hiss if I put my ears right by the tweeters on my SL2s and n-Sats (no hissing from my Kans - maybe the tweeters have had better days...??) but otherwise nothing when there's no music playing.

Seconded. Nor my study system nor AV system nor the Muso.

Transformer hum, or fan noise in amps? Every hi end amp I've tried has had it to some extent, some so bad you can hear it from the listening position, others just when you are close. One poster above wrote they can hear hiss from their listening position, though I've never experienced more than a low level hiss from the tweeter when you put your ear close.

You could argue it's acceptable if no noises are audible from more than 1m away.

Richard Dane posted:

There's no humming, buzzing or hissing* coming from any of my Naim systems.  

Richard, do you have a particularly clean mains supply coming into the house (either by luck or design)? I’ve never heard a Naim power amp that doesn’t hum at least a bit. Assuming that you mean hum/buzzing from the box, rather than the speakers. 

All transformers hum to some degree or other, it's just the volume of the hum that varies!

For a few reasons, toroidals are one of the most efficient transformer designs; but they also work best when used near to full capacity, and are often more precisely tuned to their deigned operating conditions to get the best results from them.  However, this precise tuning leaves less operating margin when conditions deteriorate outside of their designed parameters; as a result when conditions become less than ideal (e.g. asymmetric mains waveform) they have less tolerance and the hum increases more rapidly than for many other designs.

ChrisSU posted:

Richard Dane posted:

There's no humming, buzzing or hissing* coming from any of my Naim systems.  

Richard, do you have a particularly clean mains supply coming into the house (either by luck or design)? I’ve never heard a Naim power amp that doesn’t hum at least a bit. Assuming that you mean hum/buzzing from the box, rather than the speakers. 

Yes, I'm talking about hum from the transformers, not the speakers (never any from the speakers - hate that, and usually indicates a problem that needs fixing somewhere).

The mains here is not particularly good.  I'm out in the styx with an ancient bare copper 3 wire supply that runs for about a mile across fields and through woods, and is notorious for cutting out when the wind gets up or squirrels get too acrobatic, or someone overcooks it on the sharp bend up the road, which always seems to take out the main power pole. Only hum I ever get is when someone in the house or in the cottages nearby turn on another device that pollutes the mains - can hardly blame the poor Naim's for that - such as a hairdryer or electric blanket.  Otherwise, they're hum free.*

*I realise of course that I have now jinxed myself and the system, and tonight all the Naim kit will be humming like an angry nest of bees.

Richard Dane posted:

 

 

The mains here is not particularly good.  I'm out in the styx with an ancient bare copper 3 wire supply.....

You have a bare copper wire supply in a river!! Do you pay for it by putting a gold coin in your mouth? 

Chris, I think it has been paid for already many times over.  The electricity board said that it was long overdue being replaced - that was over 10 years ago. I think they're waiting for a total catastrophe before thinking it's worth replacing. Whether it will make a difference, I don't know, but at least the squirrels will sleep safer in their drays (if Louby Lou the Jack Russell doesn't try to get them first).

Richard Dane posted:

...

I'm out in the styx

...

I seriously hope you meant 'the sticks' rather than half-way to Hades!   (Say 'Hi' to Charon. )   

(My middle name is Xanthe [one of the Okeanids] which I suppose makes both Hades and Charon sort of distant cousins of mine!)

Richard Dane posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Richard Dane posted:

There's no humming, buzzing or hissing* coming from any of my Naim systems.  

Richard, do you have a particularly clean mains supply coming into the house (either by luck or design)? I’ve never heard a Naim power amp that doesn’t hum at least a bit. Assuming that you mean hum/buzzing from the box, rather than the speakers. 

Yes, I'm talking about hum from the transformers, not the speakers (never any from the speakers - hate that, and usually indicates a problem that needs fixing somewhere).

The mains here is not particularly good.  I'm out in the styx with an ancient bare copper 3 wire supply that runs for about a mile across fields and through woods, and is notorious for cutting out when the wind gets up or squirrels get too acrobatic, or someone overcooks it on the sharp bend up the road, which always seems to take out the main power pole. Only hum I ever get is when someone in the house or in the cottages nearby turn on another device that pollutes the mains - can hardly blame the poor Naim's for that - such as a hairdryer or electric blanket.  Otherwise, they're hum free.*

*I realise of course that I have now jinxed myself and the system, and tonight all the Naim kit will be humming like an angry nest of bees.

Out in the sticks is probably why you have no hum. Not as many ppl around to pollute your mains. I don't blame Naim for my humming, I do know it is due to dirty mains, Which is why I run a DC blocker. However the hiss (which can be heard from the listening position), I can blame Naim for as I have been told it is due to the high gain of my 202. At the same time though, I do understand why it is the way it is and I haven't replaced it as I don't want to lose the SQ I currently have.