weird hiss from my TV Options

[Mangix]

I have a Philips 42PFL360ED/27 which is a 42 inch TV. instead of using the onboard audio from my computer, i use hdmi to pass the audio to my TV and then use my TV's headphone jack to add sound to my speakers under the assumption that my TV has a better DAC. There is one problem though. no matter what i do, there is this really annoying hiss that comes from it what is independent of the volume control or any of the TV's sound settings. any ideas on what it could be?

[tropicalfish]

Does your TV not have any audio LINE output? Headphone outputs into line inputs generally isn't that great.

Anyway, do you get the hiss when you connect your computer to your speakers?

This post has been edited by tropicalfish: Jul 5 2011, 03:31

[Mangix]

Does your TV not have any audio LINE output? Headphone outputs into line inputs generally isn't that great.

Anyway, do you get the hiss when you connect your computer to your speakers?

no it does not

and no i do not. although i would prefer not to use onboard audio since there's no s/pdif support(very useful)

[tropicalfish]

Do you get hiss with headphones connected to the TV?

[DVDdoug]

i use hdmi to pass the audio to my TV and then use my TV's headphone jack to add sound to my speakers under the assumption that my TV has a better DAC.

Perhaps that's not such a good assumption, eh? The DAC itself could be high-quality and maybe the amplifier following the DAC is introducing noise. The headphone amp/output could be the same amp that normally drives your speakers, but you don't have your ear up next to the speaker so you don't hear the hiss?

...independent of the volume control or any of the TV's sound settings.

Less sensitive headphones would help. Or perhaps a headphone amplifier, which you can use as an attenuator. i.e. you crank-up the TV volume for a good strong signal-to-noise ratio, then turn down the signal and noise together with the headphone amp's volume control.

[Mangix]

i use hdmi to pass the audio to my TV and then use my TV's headphone jack to add sound to my speakers under the assumption that my TV has a better DAC.

Perhaps that's not such a good assumption, eh? The DAC itself could be high-quality and maybe the amplifier following the DAC is introducing noise. The headphone amp/output could be the same amp that normally drives your speakers, but you don't have your ear up next to the speaker so you don't hear the hiss?

...independent of the volume control or any of the TV's sound settings.

Less sensitive headphones would help. Or perhaps a headphone amplifier, which you can use as an attenuator. i.e. you crank-up the TV volume for a good strong signal-to-noise ratio, then turn down the signal and noise together with the headphone amp's volume control.

not sure if the hiss still occurs with the speakers but it definitely does with headphones.

as for the separate volume control i'll probably do that again. i stopped doing it since i needed my speakers elsewhere but i'll add some other ones and add headphones to them.

[tropicalfish]

If your computer's DAC isn't broken, you'll probably be more satisfied listening to sound off your computer than off a hissy TV DAC.