Using headphones for speakers (electrical hissing, etc)

Originally Posted by Maico

Whenever I use my headphones and plug it into the speaker jack in the back of my rig I always hear like an electrical hissing sound when I turn the volume slider on my headphones all the way up. This sound can be heard even more when I turn up the Master Volume on my computer, and the sound goes from electrical hissing to some kind of beeping, crackling, or popping sound. I can turn the volume slider on the headphones down a little bit and I won't hear it anymore, probably because then it's just too faint to hear, but I bet it's still there.

Is it because my headphones are of crappy quality (here's a link to them)and can't handle certain frequencies too well, or the internal wires are damaged somehow? I guess mine is more of a headset and not headphones, since there is a microphone on it. Do I need to have a high-tech soundcard (those 5.1 Dolby Digital THX certified, etc) maybe? I probably won't have enough money to buy those high-tech noise-cancelling headphones or whatever the latest technology is, but what price range am I looking at if I want to get some headphones (and/or a sound card) that won't have these problems? Recommendations welcomed. Thanks for your help.

RF interference from your computer's components is to blame. Muting the unused sliders can help somewhat, but it will never fix the problem completely. If you're using the computer's onboard sound, get a real sound card, or even an external digital to analog converter (which is what I have) for awesome, noise free audio reproduction.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Maico

Yea, I'm plugging it into the right jack and not the line-out one. The speaker jack on my mobo is colored green, and it turns out the plug on the headset where you plug it into the speaker jack is also the same green color. I wonder if they made those colors universal for all computer products. The microphone jack is red-colored, and then there is another one next to them that is blue in color, I'm guessing that's the line-out jack. It's too hard to see the symbol or picture by the jack to see what it is.

Anyway, I'll probably think about getting a new sound card. Am I going to have to spend a lot of money on getting a quality one? I've seen some at Wal-Mart and such for like $20, but I'm not sure how to gauge their performance. What should I be looking for when buying a sound card? And Piccolo, you mentioned a digital-to-analog converter. I tried searching Google for one, but couldn't find any product pages, just more-or-less technical information pages or some for TVs, and even some that are analog-to-digital converters. Do you have a link to a place that sells those devices or a picture of what it looks like? I've never heard of those things before.

http://www.headphone.com/products/he...al-bithead.php

A DAC converts a series of 0s and 1s into an electrical signal for sending to headphones and speakers. All sound cards and CD players have a DAC. This is an entry level one, the one I have. It is very good sounding, plus, it doubles as a headphone amplifier.

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