Silent speakers
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 4:33 am
Talking about speakers in a forum about silence does seem like an oxymoron, however there is a point to this thread.
I have been reading this forum with great interest in the last few months. Over the last year or so I seem to have become particularly sensitive to the noise emanating from my pc. As a result I have been researching silence and making moves towards silencing my PC.
Today I made an important discovery. A significant portion of the noise I'd been blaming on my PC can be heard even when the PC is off. This got me puzzled enough to experiment with switching devices off at the wall (ok, at the powerboard). The humming noise I'd been hearing wasn't coming from my PC at all. It's coming from the cheapo PC speakers. Even when the speakers themselves are switched off they emit this hum. If I switch them off at the powerboard the noise stops immediately.
Naturally I did a search on Google for speakers that don't hum, but I quickly discovered 2 things.
1) The white noise emitted by speakers is often ignored in reviews. The information isn't widely available.
2) I'm in way over my head.
I've gone full circle and returned to this site. If anyone is going to know how to buy good speakers for a PC whilst ensuring they don't produce any unwanted noise, it will be you guys.
I've learned the following in my search
* Active speakers have a built in amp and thus require power. (This is the type I have currently. I don't really want to have an amp just for my PC. There's no other hifi equipment in this room)
* Passive speakers require a separate amp.
* In terms of sound quality, virtually all PC speakers are inferior to speakers made by an actual speaker company.
* The 'types' of speakers I should be looking at are 'bookshelf speakers' or 'studio monitors'.
* Studio monitors are more appropriate than bookshelf speakers because contrary to the name, bookshelf speakers generally need to be kept at least 1 foot away from all walls.
* Studio monitors are also more likely to have evenly balanced/non-biased tone range. i.e. no overpowering base and no missing mid-range
* Most of these speakers are much larger than I'd want on my desk. I currently have speakers measuring roughly 7" x 3" x 3.5". I could easily go larger than this, but I don't want to go too far. My speakers live behind my monitor...
Have any of you made this same discovery and managed to fix it? What speakers do you recommend? Is there a section of the forum where this has been discussed in the past? A search did not turn up any threads on this topic. No subforum seems particularly appropriate, so as a relatively new poster I figured this was the best place to ask.
I have been reading this forum with great interest in the last few months. Over the last year or so I seem to have become particularly sensitive to the noise emanating from my pc. As a result I have been researching silence and making moves towards silencing my PC.
Today I made an important discovery. A significant portion of the noise I'd been blaming on my PC can be heard even when the PC is off. This got me puzzled enough to experiment with switching devices off at the wall (ok, at the powerboard). The humming noise I'd been hearing wasn't coming from my PC at all. It's coming from the cheapo PC speakers. Even when the speakers themselves are switched off they emit this hum. If I switch them off at the powerboard the noise stops immediately.
Naturally I did a search on Google for speakers that don't hum, but I quickly discovered 2 things.
1) The white noise emitted by speakers is often ignored in reviews. The information isn't widely available.
2) I'm in way over my head.
I've gone full circle and returned to this site. If anyone is going to know how to buy good speakers for a PC whilst ensuring they don't produce any unwanted noise, it will be you guys.
I've learned the following in my search
* Active speakers have a built in amp and thus require power. (This is the type I have currently. I don't really want to have an amp just for my PC. There's no other hifi equipment in this room)
* Passive speakers require a separate amp.
* In terms of sound quality, virtually all PC speakers are inferior to speakers made by an actual speaker company.
* The 'types' of speakers I should be looking at are 'bookshelf speakers' or 'studio monitors'.
* Studio monitors are more appropriate than bookshelf speakers because contrary to the name, bookshelf speakers generally need to be kept at least 1 foot away from all walls.
* Studio monitors are also more likely to have evenly balanced/non-biased tone range. i.e. no overpowering base and no missing mid-range
* Most of these speakers are much larger than I'd want on my desk. I currently have speakers measuring roughly 7" x 3" x 3.5". I could easily go larger than this, but I don't want to go too far. My speakers live behind my monitor...
Have any of you made this same discovery and managed to fix it? What speakers do you recommend? Is there a section of the forum where this has been discussed in the past? A search did not turn up any threads on this topic. No subforum seems particularly appropriate, so as a relatively new poster I figured this was the best place to ask.