Mine Hiss, Mine Don't -- Apogee Ensemble Headphone List

[jordanh]

If you are an ensemble owner like I am, chances are you've come across a thread or two talking about excessive or non-excessive hiss in the headphone out(s) on our beloved ensembles. Playing back music through the ensemble and my monitors is amazing, and hiss is virtually non existent. However, when i'm listening to a tune through my earbuds, Shure E3c's, which I like for their noise cancellation when my roomate is busy, the hiss is VERY noticable. I even brought my ensemble to Apogee in Santa Monica and after being tested, there wasn't headphone hiss in the headphones they used there. I figured, perhaps we should take all of our experiences and compile a list so that we can all see whats been playing nice with the ensemble, and what hasn't. Chris from apogee, if you read this, I'd appreciate if you posted which headphones you tested my unit with when I brought it in. Anyway, if possible to rate your headphones in terms of hiss with the emsemble, follow this scale!

Jordan's Amazing Scale of Hiss

None |0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10| Ungodly

The Goog, the Bad, and the....ok
Shure E3c - 6-7-
Apple iPod Earbuds - 1-2
....yours go here

[goldphinga]

From what i know this is just a product of the huge amount of gain available on the headphone outs, its not a fault. Also it may not have been the headphones that were used at the time but the listening environment that made the noise disappear. Just my 2 cents...

[buschfsu]

sennheiser HD280 pro 6 - annoying

having alot of gain available shouldn't make the headphone out noisy when the gain is set to the lowest level? only when its turned all the way up should the noise floor come into play.

sadly my digi001 is dead quiet all the way through the gain range.

cmmmon!@!

[kenjkelly]

One thing to check is the Impedance of the headsets. For example, one of my headsets is a K240 Monitor headset that has 600Ohms stamped on the side but the K240 Studio headset is 55 Ohms. I don't have the apogee to run the tests.

[Kiwiburger]

This is too subjective and open to huge variables. And what does it prove? So you bought a unit with a cheap heaphone amp - so what? At least the converters are good. Buy a good headphone amp.

I use Sennheiser HD280's with a Benchmark DAC-1, and the silence amazes me. But most other headphone amps have noticable hiss - my Mackie mixers are intolerable.

Headphones with excellent isolation (like the HD280's) will expose the noise more - because they shut out the room noise. Impedance, frequency response, sensitivity, user age and hearing response, and listening ability - they all vary wildly between headphones and users.