X-John_Beale
Imported Account
Mar 21, 2001, 8:55 PM
Post #7 of 12
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VX2k hiss: finding the answers
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: I bought mine sometime in Oct 2000. I don't have a hissing problem. It would be nice to see how many people have this problem (by a show of hands).
I don't hear a hiss from my VX2000 (purchased Nov. '00) on material of "normal" loudness, during normal level playback on my TV speakers. But I do notice a hiss through headphones on my soundcard output, listening to VX2k playback in my NLE system. On clean CD soundtracks and other known good sources there is no perceptible hiss so it isn't the soundcard or other items in the audio chain; it must be from the camera.
If 50% of VX2k owners report a hiss, then clearly 50% of the owners of this camera have a problem... but I guess I'm trying to answer a different question: is this because half the cameras are bad, or is it actually all the cameras are bad and half the camera owners have better hearing then the rest, or are trying to record fainter sources and playing back at higher levels? The best way I can think to answer this question is by measuring camera noise in dB levels, independent of the operator's ears.
Everyone's ears keep changing. As people get older, high-frequency hearing loss increases, varying of course between individuals. For example, it used to be that the TV horizontal retrace (flyback) frequency near 15 kHz, which can be very loud from some TV sets, would bother me. It doesn't anymore- not because they've made all the sets quiet now, but because my hearing now falls off sharply above 13 kHz.
"Hiss" describes a broadband noise. Pure white noise, with a completely flat spectrum, sounds like a hiss. The more high-frequency hearing loss you have, the less loud a given level of "hiss" will seem to you, because there will be less of that broad spectrum that you can actually hear. So, I'm sure I'll be able to look forward to being even less bothered by hiss in the future :-/
If you have a broadband noise floor of -65 dB I'd say it is a reasonable but not great audio system. If I turn up the gain to hear a quiet passage, I will hear the hiss (of course- turn up the gain enough and you'll hear hiss on any system). If you have a noise floor of -92 dB you have an outstanding audio system. I would have to turn up the gain to a truly unreasonable level to hear hiss. My Turtle Beach Fiji soundcard actually achieves that level. None of my MiniDV cameras do, unfortunately.
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