I recently bought some nice Sennheiser HD202 headphones (supra-aural, cover most of your ear) and the sound of course sounds amazing, but there's a distinct low hissing sound when they're plugged in and no music is on. When music is turned on, the hiss quickly gets drowned out, but it is sometimes noticeable during a quiet moment in a song.
I'm fairly sure the hiss isn't due to the headphones, since they're Sennheisers, and I've plugged them into my phone/mp3 player with no hissing background noise (via a mini-USB attachment). This leads me to believe that the issue is the motherboard's onboard audio. I've tried plugging them into my speakers, and directly into the motherboard sound jack in the back of the PC, and I get the same results. In volume controls, when upping the microphone volume, the hiss increases considerably. The mic volume is currently muted (the headset has no mic) but the hiss is still there.
Any ideas on what it could be? Do you think a cheap soundcard would solve the issue? I'm not prepared to spend a lot on a high-end sound card, so my only option would be some $30 Creative sound card.
Thanks.
I'm fairly sure the hiss isn't due to the headphones, since they're Sennheisers, and I've plugged them into my phone/mp3 player with no hissing background noise (via a mini-USB attachment). This leads me to believe that the issue is the motherboard's onboard audio. I've tried plugging them into my speakers, and directly into the motherboard sound jack in the back of the PC, and I get the same results. In volume controls, when upping the microphone volume, the hiss increases considerably. The mic volume is currently muted (the headset has no mic) but the hiss is still there.
Any ideas on what it could be? Do you think a cheap soundcard would solve the issue? I'm not prepared to spend a lot on a high-end sound card, so my only option would be some $30 Creative sound card.
Thanks.