Envy 14 white noise, anyway to fix?

Hey.

Bought this new Envy 14, great laptop, but there is one problem that it has white noise when you plug in the headphones.

You hear the noise if you are not playing any music, but have the headphones on.

Is there anyway to fix?

Thanks.

 

That's funny because the biggest benefit of the Beats audio is supposed to be insulation of the audio ports from interference.

 

Are you getting the beeping noises occasionally that pop up when you are opening a web browser or some other generic program. Stuff like that?

When I had my Envy 15, I never got any interference because of the high-end audio jack and audio chip they used. The only noises I often heard from it when not listening to music is occasional popping that occurs when you open programs and such.

 

Not beeping noises, its whitenoise I hear when headphones are on with no audio.....if you search on the forum other people have problems as well but no solutions yet....

You can get rid of that beeping noise in beats audio config if anyone wants to know.

 

Only way is to by a resister plug to add more impedance to the output. For some headphones, this does change the characteristics of the sound a bit. It is NOT possible to eliminate noise via drivers or software. If you plug in a headphone with higher impedance, you won't hear the noise at all.

 

Speaking of which, is anyone getting CPU whine with a i5-580? It's really becoming annoying for me...

 

My 580M doesn't have the wine. At at least not loud enough for me to hear through the fan noise.

 

More information needed. What headphones are you using?

Things to keep in mind: The audio setup on this system is nice, very nice. It pushes out a lot more volume than most other setups. If you are using a low quality pair of headphones there is likely some feedback due to the low impedance of the cans you are using.

@ the whine comment. I have the same processor, no whine issues. GPU fan gets a bit loud when I plan games, but I am playing the new Warhammer 40k beta so that is expected from this machine.

 

If I use my iphone ear plugs I have no white noise but if I use my "nicer" (more expensive) ear buds I do hear that white noise the OP has.

Also, when I use my USB headset I do not hear any white noise.

Like others have mentioned, it seems to be related to the impedance of the specific headphones you are using.

 

Ya you are right, my expensive earphones have that noise aswell, but the other earphones dont have that noise.....

Although on my other laptop this earphone was fine.

 

This makes me wonder about what you guys are calling nicer headphones...

For kicks and giggles I plugged in a pair of throw aways that came with my samsung phone. White noise, basically just the static of the volume setting on the computer.

Plugged in my very nice 70 ohm Sennheiser's, no white noise even at 100% volume.

 

well because they sound better, and also on my previous laptop I had no white noise with same earphones I am using, but on this laptop there is......

 

You can try this: under the Preferences tab of the Beats Audio Control Panel, select "General" and turn off all power saving setting. Hopefully this will fix the random clicks that you can sometimes hear.

 

I can confirm this problem, using Sennheiser HD-25-II headphones (the 70 Ohm version). These are very sensitive professional headphones and they pickup the white noise in the audio as well as other noises, such as slight but hearable noise that my usb mouse makes while moving. So much for the high quality audio marketing bs

The way to remedy this would be using some kind of attenuator. I believe Shure makes one, or you can try to patch something yourself. Or you could use an external amplifier or DAC (try head-fi.org forums).

 

trust me, I did plenty of research on this....

Its sad how easily manipulated most of us are by labels. I'm going to be blunt (and sad too seeing as I was fooled too): the audio on this system is a joke. It's nothing special and worse than what I've had on previous laptops. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They've really done NOTHING special here. While yes, it can put out signficant power, there really are no headphones on the face of the plannet that have a high enough impedence to justify this power that comes at the expense of the quality of the sound.
I don't care what anyone says, one of the key points of a high-quality system is the lack of background noise which is just absurd on this laptop.

Now that I'm done ranting... the only solution (as I believe others have mentioned) is something along the lines of Amazon.com: Koss VC20 Volume Control: Electronics . It sucks, its a pain, but there's reallly no other choice.

 

Hold on there space cowboy. If the noise you are picking up is that heavy, it sounds like you have a defect. Also, directed at the other person with an amazingly awesome pair of hd25-1 II (same pair I'm using), those can's aren't amazingly sensitive, they are amazingly accurate. With a 70 ohm resistance the noise being picked up is less than cheapos pick up.

Now, about the sound quality. I have two other laptops, my ipods, my zune hd, my very nice android smart phone, and a tower with an older mid range sound card in it. And, I can very plainly say, that while powering my sennheiser's this the envy sounds best. I can get away listening to 192kbps tracks on my other devices and get away with it. I try to listen to low quality tracks like this on the laptop and right away, it sounds like crap.

Like it should. I can't even stomach listening to pandora anymore on this laptop for that same reason. Put in a high quality flac song? Ear orgasm.

I pick up the tinniest amount of background hiss, at 100% volume, I also would go deaf if I listened to that volume for any amount of time. My theory is, if you are listening to this laptop on speakers, and you are picking up white noise, its your speakers fault, not the laptop. You are likely jamming up the volume on the laptop too high.

Even my Logitech speakers don't have any noise issues when playing music and movies off of this laptop.

If the noise is that loud, that you can audibly hear it and it is distracting you, send it in. But don't call the laptop a fraud, I haven't have this much fun listening to music on a laptop, ever.

Also, as others have mentioned, if you are listening to nothing on this laptop, and have it plugged in, etc, you will hear occasional noises, this is the battery saving features of the sound card, and another member has already pointed out how to disable that feature.

 

You seem very enthusiastic about your Envy This problem is well known and a lot of people reported it. The hiss is hearable even with everything muted, microphones turned off completely, etc... Adding some impedance solves it for most people.

The quality is OK, but I would not go so far as to call it ear orgasms though. Listenable, but nothing stellar, with any kind of recording ,)

 

Can you please tell me what that means? I am looking to solve this white noise.....Thanks.

 

means you put some sorta resistor or something on there.

you put something in between the headphones and the headphones jack.

not really sure what you're supposed to use though

 

Lower impedance on the better earphones causes it.

 

okay well its not really just an impedance issue to be more clear. Its an issue of sensitivity (loudness per watt) and impedance (both are properties of the headphones you are using). Low impedance + high sensitivity yields the awful results that everyone has with the envy. And no, mine is not abnormal. I've been through two now with the same issues. Larger "studio" style headphones tend to have a lower sensitivity due to larger drivers which will be the best bet for getting a set that sounds good on the envy 14. the problem is that these are really the only style of headphones that MIGHT sound good on the envy 14. Quality earbud/ in-ear-monitors are almost universally going to have the issues that have been mentioned. I hate to be pretentious and call myself an audiophile, but I am. The envy 14's audio setup is trash- period. Maybe it is good for "bass junkies" he want to feel their head vibrating to the sound of the music but this is not the way music is meant to be heard.

Lesson: screw Monster Audio, Dr. Dre, and their marketing gimmicks.

 

As has been said here, something like this

Amazon.com: Koss VC20 Volume Control: Electronics

or

Amazon.com: Shure EA650 Volume Control for Shure E/SE Series Sound Isolating Earphones: Electronics

or you could take a step higher and buy an external amplifier and/or DAC. There is a lot of discussion about both on Forums - Head-Fi.org, which I wholeheartedly recommend.

 

Great simple schematic

The HISSBUSTER - for sensitive headphones - Head-Fi.org Community