[absolutofft]

Does a homemade amp remove any and all of the noise from whatever source is inputted to it? My creek obh-11 which I connect to my computer (and to a cd player) does this. Will a homemade amp off battery power do the same thing?

 

[StevieDvd]

I#m no expert but the basic home made amps do not filter out noise, in fact it will likely exacerbate any noise. DC battery supply can be less noisy than cheaper PSUs.

If you have a noisy source I don't think an amp is the fix.

Now we'll see if the real experts have the same response and possibly a solution for you.

 

[morsel]

No amp removes noise. The Creek is a hunk of junk, but apparently it is better than using no amp at all. I assure you it is not removing noise, as you put it. If you think your rig sounds better with the Creek, it is bound to sound better still with a good DIY amp.

 

[jnewman]

While it is true that amps generally don't remove noise (although I've seen a few preamps with extreme low and extreme high filters to remove turntable hiss and pop and such like) there IS something that may be happening here: If you're talking about a source that you normally plug headphones DIRECTLY into, like a portable cd player or a computer, you'll probably have a lower volume signal out of the source, which often gives a smaller relative amount of hiss in the sound. This is even more obvious if you are using a line out as opposed to a headphone jack - it takes the cheap headphone amp out of the circuit and all the hiss imparted by it goes away.