[PlanetCCRMA] Noisy new Sennheiser headphones

[Ron Pepper]

--- Michael Tiemann <tiemann@redhat.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-06-22 at 18:19 -0700, Ron Pepper wrote:
> > Just got a new pair of headphones, Sennheiser 280 Pro's, to be
> used
> > while working on my computer. Unfortunately, I'm picking up what
> I
> > think is system noise, that cheaper 'phones don't detect. My
> system
> > is debian on a dell box. Amarok is my favorite player, but it's
> also
> > the noisiest. The noise is a low level hiss/buzz and can be
> detected
> > even when Amarok is totally muted. The noise intensifies when I
> move
> > the mouse around and over links, hot-spots, menus etc. I posted
> to
> > Amarok, and Xine, but they suggested the problem was in my
> system. I
> > turned off unused channels in alsamixer, but that didn't help.
> Same
> > noise for sessions in kde or icewm. The problem is not the
> headphones
> > themselves, as there is no noise when used in OSX and iTunes. 
> 
> Please tell me how you run OSX and iTunes on a Dell box.  If you
> mean to
> say "on a Mac running OSX everything's great, but on a Dell there's
> all
> kinds of electrical noise" then you have a noisy system--a system
> that
> does not isolate noise.  Further down that path, I, too, have a
> pair of
> HD 280s, and in my experience, those phones require a fair bit of
> output
> to reach a decent level.  If you mute everything in the Amarok
> world,
> but also crank everything volume-wise, do you hear /nothing/ in
> your
> cheaper phones?
> 
> > I'm willing to try a few things, if anyone has any suggestions,
> but I
> > don't want to mess around with major surgery on my system. If
> there
> > is no obvious/likely software solution, I want to exchange the
> > headphones. In that case, can anyone suggest headphones that
> might
> > work better. Obviously, I'll lose some of the quality that the
> 280's
> > provide, but that would be better than the noise. Is there
> something
> > in the specs of 'phones that I should be looking for? Also,
> frankly I
> > don't like the closed circum-aural 280's as much as I thought I
> > would. They're a bit hot and tight. Is there a lighter open-ear
> > headphone that still might be reasonable quality that might work
> > better for me?
> 
> The studio standard for open-ear headphones is the AKG K240
> headphones.
> I also have those, but I prefer the 280s for high-noise
> environments
> (like when I travel on an airplane).
> 
> M

I'm running OSX on a Mac and that "system" has no noise that I can
detect thru the Senn 280's. I just mentioned this to verify that the
noise is not a defect in the headphones. My Linux box (the Dell) is a
separate machine. I tried your suggestion and lowered the volume
control on Amarok as low as possible (1-2%) and raising the master
volume on Kmix. I also tried it the other way around, and get about
the same amount of noise either way.

You mentioned the Sennheiser 280's require a "fair amount of output
to reach a decent level". Does this mean that headphones that require
less might not be as noisy? I'm wondering if there's some kind of
output spec that would give me better results.

Thanks,
Ron

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