[mralexosborn]

My Gamma1 is dead silent. My Little Dot MKIII is silent with normal listening levels. But with some recording there is quite a hefty noise floor. I have a pair of HF-2's. 
Is it possible for my to get rid of the recording's noise floor? If I were to get higher impedance headphones would it disappear? What can I do?
 
 

 

[LFF]

You can do one of two things to remove a recordings noise...
 
1) EQ it out
 
or
 
2) Use a variety of noise removal software/hardware.
 
Which one to use depends on the nature of the noise and the results that can be obtained. It is usually better to try to EQ it out by using a notch filter but you usually have to surgically apply such a procedure. Noise removal software can easily be overdone and I generally would not recommend using it unless you have a very revealing and accurate system and a high grade noise removal system.

 

[jcx]

tube amps have more input circuit noise, with higher sensitivity, low Z cans it may be audible, listening at low volume settings is worse - use the lowest amp gain setting
 
if that's still so loud you have to turn the volume down then a output "hiss buster" attenuator resistor divider could help - although usually only needed with iem
 
some recordings also were just recorded with audible noise - its not readily removable
 

 

[TMRaven]

Sometimes it's as easy as attenuating the highest frequencies in a program, but other times the noise isn't just a real high frequency.  For that, you can use a noise remover that will sample the noise and attempt to remove it throughout the recording, but that's usually less than ideal, as you'll lose a lot of the fidelity in the song.