avitron142
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2013
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Hi @chaotic_angel,
Depends on several factors :
1. If you are using stock tubes which I presume you are when you say it is standard version, then by nature, stock 6AK5 are 'noisy' or potentially high noise tubes also with potentially high gain as their original purpose was in military specific communications so they tend to be rather sensitive overall.
Which essentially means at any significant volume &/or with low impedence head gear the listener is subjected to the noise generated by the stock tubes regardless of whether amp is touched or not.
So it is normal to a degree, just depends on whether it is louder than the music though if it is most classical, sadly, this is not hard.
2. Elemental Watson M1 & M2 have comparable hiss noise though M1 tends to be a little more sensitive & has no gain control on the PCB which does affect how much noise will be heard.
So if you have the M2, try reducing the gain as much as possible as well as not using any head gear which is overly sensitive.
Hope this makes sense.
Hope you have a great day !
Just got my Watson II - it sounds great, but has a ton of noise with even over-ears such as the K7XX and HE400S. This is the first time I've had hiss problems with these (not extremely easy to drive) headphones... I noticed you mentioned a gain control on the PCB? Where could I find this, and adjust it? My RCA's are on the back, but I don't recall having the two screws everyone else was talking about.
I know you also mentioned the IEMatch didn't do much for you here... one is coming, I'll share my findings on that front after. When I can take out the AK's and put in the GE JAN 5654W and Voshkod 6ZH1P-EV, I'll do so as well.
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