advertisement


PC 3.5mm jack output noise, help!

PhilofCas

PhilofCas

pfm Member
Morning all,

My son has just bought a new headphone amp and headphones for use with his pc.

The amp has arrived and is very good with his MacBook Pro:
MacBook (3.5mm jack) -> (RCA) Amp -> Headphones
There is no noise at all using this setup.

However, if used on his desktop PC you can hear ‘static’/interference (e.g. can hear when mouse is scrolled on screen, etc.), again using 3.5mm on PC to RCA on the back of the amp.

We’ve tried using separate wall plugs instead of both being plugged into the same power strip, but this didn’t work.

Our thoughts are that this points to static being picked up on the internals of the PC and fed through the jack and being amplified by the amp. Without the amp, there is no noise through the headphones. Could this be fixed by using an external DAC (would have to be USB), or is there something else at fault in the setup somewhere?

(By the way there’s no noise at all when used off an IPad too).


Very grateful for any help with this problem.

Thank you,

Phil.
 
If the DAC has some form of isolation from the PC then yes it should remove the noise if it does not require a handshake to work with the pc and has separate power i have simply covered the 5 volt pin on the usb connector and again no noise. If hes serious about headphone listening a seperate sound card from Asus with a rather good built in amp is another solution. I have to use an isolation device on the interface between pc and dac to achieve a silent background for headphone listening.
 
Is he any good with pc build or inspection?
Power supply fans and cooling fans on desk tops can give terrible vibration if not mounted correctly also due the way mother boards attach cards I used to find using fibre washers or a suspended mounts to attach the mother board to the case helped.
To be clear I have no evidence or experience regards audio performance I used to do this to gaming desktops to reduce noise and vibration that was annoying me I imagine the headphone amp is picking up this vibration
 
Mongeddavid said:
If the DAC has some form of isolation from the PC then yes it should remove the noise if it does not require a handshake to work with the pc and has separate power i have simply covered the 5 volt pin on the usb connector and again no noise. If hes serious about headphone listening a seperate sound card from Asus with a rather good built in amp is another solution. I have to use an isolation device on the interface between pc and dac to achieve a silent background for headphone listening.
Click to expand...

thanks David, yes he’s serious, the headphones are Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro, and amp is Schiit Asgard 3 (no DAC), intention was to see if PC output was good enough, then if not look for a DAC too. Like I say, the amp works well with laptop/iPad but is noisy on PC, he’s using his current headphones until the new ones come tomorrow. It’s looking like a dac is inevitable?
 
say it as it is said:
Is he any good with pc build or inspection?
Power supply fans and cooling fans on desk tops can give terrible vibration if not mounted correctly also due the way mother boards attach cards I used to find using fibre washers or a suspended mounts to attach the mother board to the case helped.
To be clear I have no evidence or experience regards audio performance I used to do this to gaming desktops to reduce noise and vibration that was annoying me I imagine the headphone amp is picking up this vibration
Click to expand...

thanks, PC is good spec one from Overclockers. Motherboard is on the cheaper side in son’s view so he seems to think that that’ll be the problem. From reading, using PC without a standalone USB DAC or equivalent can be problematic, e.g. giving static as we’ve experienced.
 
I had a problem with similar a similar noise on a cheap set of USB power desktop speakers. Any changes on the screen resulted on obvious noises coming from the speakers. It was a while ago but I think I solved it by using an external USB power supply rather than powering it from the PC.

I later upgraded to QSB USB powered speakers. The superior power filtering eliminated the problem.

The QSBs were a bargain from Advanced MP3 when they were clearing out the last of their stock of these discontinued speakers.
 
Bit of an update folks...

It was the cable, seems my cheap cable I’d lent him was a bit too cheap! He ordered one from Thomann along with his headphones which came today and hey presto, noise gone.

Must say I’m surprised, must have better shielding etc.

Yes, on look out for a DAC now, cheers all.
 
PhilofCas said:
Bit of an update folks...

It was the cable, seems my cheap cable I’d lent him was a bit too cheap! He ordered one from Thomann along with his headphones which came today and hey presto, noise gone.

Must say I’m surprised, must have better shielding etc.

Yes, on look out for a DAC now, cheers all.
Click to expand...
I’d be looking out for a Chord Mojo, it might even make the Schiit amp redundant since it’s a very competent headphone amp in its own right and can be used on the move with a phone if he wishes... you can pick them up for around £299 (Richer Sound had the for that money new at one point), which is only £100 more than the Asgard, fabulous VFM.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top