So I have a desktop computer, with an external Fulla 2 Schiit as an external DAC and two Yamaha HS7 studio monitors.
Sound is very good under normal conditions (except a very faint hiss/white noise from the tweeters when no sound is playing, which I understand is normal for all studio monitors).
The problem occurs when gaming. When the GPU (rx 480) gets activated, there's usually a buzzing sound coming from the speakers. It sounds like ground loop noise. Sometimes it's louder, sometimes it's not. Some games make it worse, some don't. Sometimes the buzzing is different (louder) with the same game. And sometimes I get digital noise too (not sure if that's what it's called, it's like when you hear the computer processing data, kinda like coil whine), but this usually goes away when I enable v-sync in games.
Anyway, the Internet is full of this issue, but no solution I tried worked for me: plugging everything in the same power strip, in different power strips, different usb cables, tried with/without the external DAC, moved cables around to avoid interference, removed all other consumers from the power socket, moved DAC away from the computer, etc.
I don't believe it's ground loop noise (even if the buzz sounds like it), because it's not there all the time and I've plugged everything into the same power strip. I still have to test by removing the grounding (ground lift?) from the power strip (which by no means will be a permanent solution, because having no grounding is stupid and dangerous).
It's not coil whine from the computer, as some suggest on other forums. The noises come from the speakers, as sounds.
It's not radio interference on the audio cables, because the speakers get quiet as soon as I unplug the usb cable from the DAC and that cable is fairly short.
So my conclusion is that some sort of electrical noise gets passed through the usb cable to the DAC and then to the speakers. I've seen that there are some boxes that do galvanic decoupling on USB, but those supporting Hi-Speed USB are expensive and I don't want to spend a ton of money on something that might not solve the issue.
Which gets me to my actual question:
I've been looking for an audio interface to use with my computer, because I'd like to have balanced outputs for the speakers (I don't really need it, but it'd be fun to have, I guess). So, is there any USB DAC / audio interface with a reasonable price (i.e. < 400€ ) which handles (filters) somehow the noise from the USB line so that this issue will be less annoying? I've seen some that have these things written in their specs, but the prices for those are mind blowing (aka ~$3000)...
Thanks!
Sound is very good under normal conditions (except a very faint hiss/white noise from the tweeters when no sound is playing, which I understand is normal for all studio monitors).
The problem occurs when gaming. When the GPU (rx 480) gets activated, there's usually a buzzing sound coming from the speakers. It sounds like ground loop noise. Sometimes it's louder, sometimes it's not. Some games make it worse, some don't. Sometimes the buzzing is different (louder) with the same game. And sometimes I get digital noise too (not sure if that's what it's called, it's like when you hear the computer processing data, kinda like coil whine), but this usually goes away when I enable v-sync in games.
Anyway, the Internet is full of this issue, but no solution I tried worked for me: plugging everything in the same power strip, in different power strips, different usb cables, tried with/without the external DAC, moved cables around to avoid interference, removed all other consumers from the power socket, moved DAC away from the computer, etc.
I don't believe it's ground loop noise (even if the buzz sounds like it), because it's not there all the time and I've plugged everything into the same power strip. I still have to test by removing the grounding (ground lift?) from the power strip (which by no means will be a permanent solution, because having no grounding is stupid and dangerous).
It's not coil whine from the computer, as some suggest on other forums. The noises come from the speakers, as sounds.
It's not radio interference on the audio cables, because the speakers get quiet as soon as I unplug the usb cable from the DAC and that cable is fairly short.
So my conclusion is that some sort of electrical noise gets passed through the usb cable to the DAC and then to the speakers. I've seen that there are some boxes that do galvanic decoupling on USB, but those supporting Hi-Speed USB are expensive and I don't want to spend a ton of money on something that might not solve the issue.
Which gets me to my actual question:
I've been looking for an audio interface to use with my computer, because I'd like to have balanced outputs for the speakers (I don't really need it, but it'd be fun to have, I guess). So, is there any USB DAC / audio interface with a reasonable price (i.e. < 400€ ) which handles (filters) somehow the noise from the USB line so that this issue will be less annoying? I've seen some that have these things written in their specs, but the prices for those are mind blowing (aka ~$3000)...
Thanks!
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