Originally Posted by sejarzo
I have to be blunt: if you were experiencing that level of hiss in your system without the miracle power cable, something was wrong. The player might be designed to be totally quiet, but how can you be certain that there isn't a bad connection from signal ground to chassis ground in your player due to a component that is faulty after a power surge or something like that?
I think people might be misinterpreting the levels that I'm speaking of. The B-52 is an EXTREMELY loud headphone amp, capable of pushing cans quite a bit further than most. I never listen to it at half level unless it is a really quiet recording. If I were to do so, I would have to strain to hear the hiss, and it would only be audible during silent sections. The hiss is very obvious at full blast, but I'd be willing to bet that the B-52's full blast is three or four times as loud as most headphone amps (it certainly is much louder than my HeadRoom Balanced Desktop). Full blast on a B-52 is immediate hearing damage.
This is about an audio obsessive. 99% of people probably wouldn't have even noticed the hiss until it was pointed out. But I'm looking for perfection, and I am a firm believer in low level details being the heart of music reproduction.