Constant Speaker Hiss troubleshooting/ advice??

[ski4evr]

Very interested in outcome of bypassing the 420. I have the same issue. Wired to same power source as HU and amps. Set up following the directions. Is NRYAN suggesting turning down internal gains on 420 and readjusting everything will clean up the hiss?

[David Analog]

I'll save you the trouble of inserting a couple of barrel connectors. With all else remaining the same, bypassing the EQ will absolutely reduce the hiss 90% of the time. But that is not a conclusive diagnosis. It only tells you that the EQ is party to the noise in some large or small way. It does not explain how and why. It doesn't get you any closer to having a noise level that you can tolerate while maintaining all the features you want from your EQ.

[nyryan2001]

Is NRYAN suggesting turning down internal gains on 420 and readjusting everything will clean up the hiss?

No, just the opposite..... I said ensure the gains on top of the 420 are set to max... To maximize the path signal being fed to the amps... That way you can keep your amp gains lower, hopefully keeping the hiss threshold lower, and not loosing anything off your max volume.

I try to talk in simple terms, none of this is all that complicated, and I don't try to scare folks into audio shops to remedy things they can do themselves.

Funny you say that now David, that certainly wasn't your stance yrs ago on the 420. Funny how things run full circle. This is what happens when retailers hype products regardless of the faults they have. All subjective. No objective feedback to be found against the 420 or ZLD. What a joke. I fixed the hiss removing the poor product.

Hopefully OP has his gains on top of his 420 only set half way.... Moving them to max that just might give him a bit more signal to get the hiss under control as David described.


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[Paxdad]

Bypass the WS420 and see what you get. I am betting no hiss. I have the exact same problems on my REV8s, and I am almost certain it is the WS420 and will be testing it out shortly.

How would I do this? The hiss is still present no matter if the WS420 is set to main or aux.

Thanks to everyone for the replies so far. Looks like I have some work in front of me to sort out.

[Paxdad]

No, just the opposite..... I said ensure the gains on top of the 420 are set to max... To maximize the path signal being fed to the amps... That way you can keep your amp gains lower, hopefully keeping the hiss threshold lower, and not loosing anything off your max volume.

I try to talk in simple terms, none of this is all that complicated, and I don't try to scare folks into audio shops to remedy things they can do themselves.

Funny you say that now David, that certainly wasn't your stance yrs ago on the 420. Funny how things run full circle. This is what happens when retailers hype products regardless of the faults they have. All subjective. No objective feedback to be found against the 420 or ZLD. What a joke. I fixed the hiss removing the poor product.

Hopefully OP has his gains on top of his 420 only set half way.... Moving them to max that just might give him a bit more signal to get the hiss under control as David described.


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NRyan,
My WS420 is mounted on/ in the gunwale panel next to the on/off/bilge switch which does present a problem for access I am going to tackle its relocation to under dash and check out the gain settings as you suggest. Moving it to under dash will also help in the future for volume control etc. b

[nyryan2001]

Good luck... Hopefully you have some gain left on the 420, and the hiss can be reduced without gaining away the capability you have there in those amps. You have some great gear there.

If you can't my strike a balance between lowering hiss and killing your max output, recommend you take a strong look at a swap on a WS420sq or the new ZLD.

The way I described tuning your system is "B" level tune at best.... A high end audio shop who really knows what they are doing can get much more precise in the tune. With that being said, the cost of that tune with them is approx the price of a new 420sq or ZLD.

Good luck, I went thru the same issues with the same product, except audio experts back then tried to convince us all that that was the price of a DIY system, bad wiring etc, bad tuning etc.... that if we wanted a premium system and sound, we had to go to their shops. 100% not the case. In my case, it was poor quality products THEY were selling, promoting and defending to the death while doing everything they could to discredit other well performing products.


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[shawndoggy]

There's a thread on tigeowners from a couple if years back where a guy ran a line driver between his headunit and ws420 and that cured the hiss by stepping up the input voltage into the 420.


Me personally, I'm with Ryan. I've used the 2010 ws420, the $50 clarion eqs746 and the exile ZLD. The clarion and exile units both resulted in far less hiss than the 420, all tuned by a shade tree hack 12v enthusiast (me). There's still a very little bit of hiss in my tune from the ZLD that you can hear if you put your ear to the speaker in a quiet garage. Definitely can't hear it in the open air on the lake.