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Audible hiss dta-100a

K

kschaffner

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
1,099
Hello everyone, I recently picked up a Dayton Audio DTA-100A amp and when I have my headphones plugged in I have a audible hiss kinda like a constant shhh. It is there regardless of volume and regardless if I have it plugged into my computer or not. Any insight? Is there a different amp I should look at and return this one? I have 2 bookshelves and headphones. If I put my ear up to the tweeter in the bookshelves I can hear the hiss there as well.

Edit: What if I went with something like the nuforce Icon udac-2 and then just plugged my headphones into that when I wanted to use them and still use the dayton amp for my bookshelves?
 
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Yeah if it has that sound in the headphone jack, there is something wrong with it. I would get a receiver but that is just me.

Edit: Just saw the specs. Probably want a dedicated headphone amp. That Nuforce is a fine choice.
 
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Well, T-amps generally have relatively high levels of baseline noise. My DTA-1 has slight levels of noise through the B652 bookshelf speakers (when putting my ear up to the tweeter, as you did) - and with high sensitivity headphones (using a female TRS to speaker wire adapter) it's so loud that listening is impossible.

I don't know exactly why you're getting problematic noise from the headphone amp - the DTA-100a uses a separate op-amp chip for the headphone amp. The noise from the speakers is to be expected, however.

Personally, I found the noise level of my DTA-1 to not be a problem with speakers. It's never audible at normal distances or with music playing.

I'd say that if you need a headphone amp, get a dedicated one.

What headphones are you using? The uDAC 2 may be suitable, and its auto-power for the RCA jacks is handy if you're using headphones and speakers.
 
The headphones that I have right now are Icemat (Steelseries) Siberias. I may look into getting the nuforce the only problem I kinda had with going that route was losing my X-Fi but I really don't use any of the features except for the xmss 3d surround. Thanks for all the info :p
 
What about a Fiio E9? It's got line level input and output (i.e. pass-through), volume controlled pre-out, and a superb headphone amp, for the same price as the uDAC 2 (which definitely has an inferior headphone amp). Or, you could get the E7/E9 combo for a bit more, if you'd find the E7 useful.

You'd be set amp-wise for essentially every headphone out there with the E9.
 
Seems like that would play well with my dta-100a as well and I could keep the x-fi even though it isn't an amazing sound card.
 
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