posted
Hi I'm sure everyone experiences at least some degree of "hiss" from tweeters. Basically it sounds like noise interference. Is this caused by the source, amplifier, wiring, or the tweeters?
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Posts: 1019 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
Short answer: It could be just about anything
Long Answer: Trouble-shoot till the noise disappears.
One easy solution may be to put a set of bass blockers on the tweets. That may not resolve the problem, but it's not a bad thing to have too much bass protection. Also, if you're amp is not super beefy, you could put a noise-canceller from Radio Shack on the power lead (works for Head Units too), this helps reduce/eliminate alternator wine (If the hiss changes loudness and frequency when you accelerate, then it's a good chance that the alternator noise is the culprit).
Noise is often present solely on the tweeter because that is the range humans are most likely to detect and the driver least likely to soak up noise with cone mass.
If it is VERY loud, (use a noise free test disc to ensure it isn't the source), it would more than likely be a ground loop. Almost all noise to my experience is caused by ground loops. www.audiocontrol.com has a nice paper on grounding in their papers section.
As UB stated, alternator noise is often a culprit, or DC leakage into your RCA's from power wire, sometimes a power supply in a component (especially those not optically isolated from signal sections) and often times a ground loop between head unit and main ground.
Solution / troubleshooting would be to run a ground wire from your deck to your main ground, make sure all components are grounded at the same spot, make sure the resistance between the battery - and your ground is very close to 0 ohms. After doing this, remove components one by one to make sure it isn't leaky power supplies. If further problems, see section 99.1 of my tutorial, "How to Make A Will" and 99.2, "How to Shoot Yourself"
ShadowStar
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Posts: 2578 | From: Somewhere In the Northeast | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Two more potential areas 1. Poor gain structure - the noise has to be introduced somewhere (so troubleshoot like Shadowstar told you), but proper gain settings can make it unnoticable, and poor settings can make it much worse 2. Passive Crossovers - the coils in passive crossovers can pick up noise just as easy as an RCA cable. If your tweeters hiss without the stereo on, this is probably your problem.
posted
I ditto the gain structure as being an easy way to accidentally increase the noise floor. But -- most often I find that people have hiss because their high freq amp is too small and it's gain set too high. Get a big ol' power monster on the front end, something that you HAVE to turn the gain down on, and the hiss will likely disappear...
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