[BrasilSamba]

It does not bug me, not at all. With the lowest volume it is practically no issue. In my case (tinnitus is really horrible life experience) it is even more not an issue.
 
I was just curieus what do other say to the noise level.

 

[jamato8]

  One more note. I suffer from slight tinnitus in one ear after a car accident. Therefore I subconsiously "filter" certain level of noise in my hearing. Today I let my wife to try my beloved HM901 and she instantly said - there is no complete silence, there is a slight level of noise when idle. And really, when I focus to noise level, it is really not completely silent. The noise level is very slight, but it is there. Then I compared it with my electrostatic Staxes, and there is a complete silence (I can distinguish between my tinnitus noise and device noise).
Well, for me it is not an issue as I have not heard complete silence for several years. It's rather a curiosity - Hifiman claims best quality - and there is not "black" silence?

What headphones and card for the 901 are you using. With my Fostex TH900 I get no background noise with the Mini card. 

 

[seeteeyou]

.

 

[BrasilSamba]

  What headphones and card for the 901 are you using. With my Fostex TH900 I get no background noise with the Mini card. 

I use balanced card and JH13ProFreq with MoonAudio Silver Dragon balanced cable TRRS connector.
HM901 is set to balanced ON / low gain / HD.

 

[jamato8]

  A little bit of gamble for the adventurous ones - Lexar Professional 600x SDXC UHS-I 256GB for $336.45 with free domestic shipping
 
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Ritz_Camera_7
 
http://www.ritzcamera.com/product/LEXLSD256CTBNA600.htm
 
Not exactly sure about the compatibility with HM-901 but that's pretty much the only brand with 256GB so far.

Interesting. I think I would wait for the price to come down and maybe HiFiman checking compatibility. 
 

  I use balanced card and JH13ProFreq with MoonAudio Silver Dragon balanced cable TRRS connector.
HM901 is set to balanced ON / low gain / HD.

I will check with my Jh13 Pro and the balanced card. 

 

[jamato8]

  I use balanced card and JH13ProFreq with MoonAudio Silver Dragon balanced cable TRRS connector.
HM901 is set to balanced ON / low gain / HD.

On low or high gain I get no background noise. No hiss, nothing. This is with the TRRS, JH13 Pro and balanced card. I tried over and over by pulling out the plug when the player is paused and using different volume settings and the two gain settings. I have fairly normal  hearing. Whiplash V3 cable used for the entire cable run. 

 

[Mimouille]

Interesting. I think I would wait for the price to come down and maybe HiFiman checking compatibility. 

The compatibility of this specific card was confirm by a user on this thread or the other. This is actually a great price, always found it around 500 to 600$ before.

 

[jamato8]

The compatibility of this specific card was confirm by a user on this thread or the other. This is actually a great price, always found it around 500 to 600$ before.

Good price then but still more than what I want to pay but it would be nice. 

 

[Mimouille]

  Good price then but still more than what I want to pay but it would be nice. 

Same here...can find it for around 400$ in China, but still a bit much for me. It would allow to haver most of my music with me though, which is nice.

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

Having been using the 901 LO recently makes me also want to purchase the upcoming dock
 
Just something I read on erji posted by Fang:
 

 The design is at its final phase. The circuit board is competed. The only outstanding function is the "USB DAC" which requires more tuning. The casing is still finalizing as well.
 
The features include:
1. Allow users to use audiophile cables
2. Remote control functions
3. Added "Buffer" for line out. The "Buffer" is added for low to medium grade headphone amp or power amp. User can switch off this "Buffer" if the receiving amp is high end.
4. Coaxial/Optical in/out
5. USB DAC using USB 2.0
 
Target price yet to be determined but should be around 2-3k RMB
 
Should be releasde early 2014....

Quite looking forward to this

 

[LarsHP]

2-3k RMB - that's not cheap. That's roughly between $325 and $485 ...

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

  2-3k RMB - that's not cheap. That's roughly between $325 and $485 ...

Agree.... as an accessory, it costs more than an audiophile DAP....
it is only good if you have an use case for it..... come to think of it, a dual ess9018 dac isnt cheap also....and the fact that the line out does sound exceptionally good...
 
anyway, lets hope that it will be 2k....
 
 

 

[pekingduck]

I am hoping the dock will have balanced out, otherwise I won't be considering it. Fingers crossed 

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

  I am hoping the dock will have balanced out, otherwise I won't be considering it. Fingers crossed 

it doesnt.....

 

[BrasilSamba]

Excuse once more my monothematic noise issue.
I'm just afraid if my balanced amp card is OK, because I found additionally that basic noise level is more distinct in the "balanced ON" player mode.
It should be vice versa when the "ground" is separated with balanced ON and balanced cable with TRRS.
To assess the basic noise I listen to "idle" player switched on. Off course , nobody listens to "idle". I use idle merely to assess the noise level.
When the player is switched on and the volume is 0, there is a barely noticaeble noise (I hear it but it is very slight). With my reference Staxes I can't hear noise (from all the range between vol min to max) at all.
I would appreciate an experince ot other HM901 owners. Please try your own player noise:
 
- set volume to minimum, switch balanced mode ON and OFF, assess the noise. Repeat with volume level 6.
- with balanced mode ON increase volume slowly to max and find out the volume level when you first hear a perceptable noise
- with balanced mode OFF do the same
 
For the compare it would be optimal that you use balanced amp. card + balanced cable with TRRS connector, but even if your config is other, your data would be interesting.
 
Thank you in advance for your information.