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Will my hookup make my signal more of a higher voltage?

Cody AOC

Cody AOC

Active Member
My setup I have a AV receiver it is a yamaha rx v800 I use as a preamp and my amp I use is crown XLi 800. My question is will using a mini mixer board work for upping my signal from my computer which I have a sound card in, the pre out on the yamaha it only puts out a 2.77v signal and I want to up that signal so I can get my full signal output for my speakers and yes my speakers can handle it, but I have 4 speakers and 1 subwoofer which is in my home computer audio setup I know I could just connect the mixer from the preout from the yamaha to the crown but then I loose the subwoofer in signal wise it would not be as loud because then the amp would be louder than the subwoofer.
 
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Anything over 2v should drive the crown to clipping. You are just adding noise.
The 800 has two gain sensitivity settings read your manual one is .75 v.
 
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Freddymac2 said:
Anything over 2v should drive the crown to clipping. You are just adding noise.
Click to expand...

Well the setup I have has white noise since my speakers are in front of me and the white noise is just loud enough for me to hear it maybe due to my sound card but I disconnect everything and the amp has no white noise or if I connect my phone to it still no white noise but I have it half way up most of the time i'm not playing loud but at good volume and the receiver I have connected is not the source of white noise and it's not the cables i've use my different kinds and types from shielded to not shielded any other way to remove white noise sorry I did not mention anything about that in the post.
 
Cody AOC said:
My setup I have a AV receiver it is a yamaha rx v800 I use as a preamp and my amp I use is crown XLi 800. My question is will using a mini mixer board work for upping my signal from my computer which I have a sound card in, the pre out on the yamaha it only puts out a 2.77v signal and I want to up that signal so I can get my full signal output for my speakers and yes my speakers can handle it, but I have 4 speakers and 1 subwoofer which is in my home computer audio setup I know I could just connect the mixer from the preout from the yamaha to the crown but then I loose the subwoofer in signal wise it would not be as loud because then the amp would be louder than the subwoofer.
Click to expand...
There are 2 things that can be used for adjustment here:
1. The subwoofer's gain knob.
2. The subwoofer gain settings in the receiver's menu.

If your subwoofer doesn't have enough wattage to keep up with the Crown, that won't be solved by ramping up the preamp or gain level. Ramping up the preamp level to the speakers and not the subwoofer leads to the speakers being louder because the voltage is higher to them than the subwoofer.

As Freddymac2 said, you're just adding noise adding the mixer to the preamp. The computer output is probably around 2V by itself, but that varies depending on the soundcard. The Yamaha may only have an output of 1V. I know the newer Yamahas I have seen only go that high. But if you are using that gain level, then the Crown should be receiving plenty of signal.

Also, are you deaf yet? ;):rockon:
 
Nightwisher said:
There are 2 things that can be used for adjustment here:
1. The subwoofer's gain knob.
2. The subwoofer gain settings in the receiver's menu.

If your subwoofer doesn't have enough wattage to keep up with the Crown, that won't be solved by ramping up the preamp or gain level. Ramping up the preamp level to the speakers and not the subwoofer leads to the speakers being louder because the voltage is higher to them than the subwoofer.

As Freddymac2 said, you're just adding noise adding the mixer to the preamp. The computer output is probably around 2V by itself, but that varies depending on the soundcard. The Yamaha may only have an output of 1V. I know the newer Yamahas I have seen only go that high. But if you are using that gain level, then the Crown should be receiving plenty of signal.

Also, are you deaf yet? ;):rockon:
Click to expand...

No i'm not deaf yet but I have no hearing damage I keep passing my hearing test every year. But if I boost the signal going from the computer to the receiver right before the cable goes into the receiver boosting it some to remove some of the white noise and adjust some other volumes on the amp by turning it down on the amp and turning up the gain on the mixer some maybe i'm not sure if that would do anything it goes plenty loud enough it's just the white noise I would love to remove some of that.
 
Cody AOC said:
Well the setup I have has white noise since my speakers are in front of me and the white noise is just loud enough for me to hear it maybe due to my sound card but I disconnect everything and the amp has no white noise or if I connect my phone to it still no white noise but I have it half way up most of the time i'm not playing loud but at good volume and the receiver I have connected is not the source of white noise and it's not the cables i've use my different kinds and types from shielded to not shielded any other way to remove white noise sorry I did not mention anything about that in the post.
Click to expand...

Well, if your question was about noise in your system, you would have answered it right here. It is coming from your computer. I'd consider getting a USB DAC, to use in place of your sound card. Removing the noise might make loud parts of the music seem louder; it will definitely improve the clarity in the medium or quieter parts.
 
Freddymac2 said:
Anything over 2v should drive the crown to clipping. You are just adding noise.
The 800 has two gain sensitivity settings read your manual one is .75 v.
Click to expand...

This is very true. 2.77V is enough for almost all amplifiers. Is the volume on your sound card turned up all the way?

Maybe leave the receiver setup alone and use the mixer from the computer direct to the XLi800. I have my computer connected to my mixer and have plenty of power and no white noise.
 
cademan said:
This is very true. 2.77V is enough or almost all amplifiers. Is your sound card volume turned up all the way?
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No i use the volume on the computer as my volume control but the receiver does not anffect the noise i have it set at a level where itys good its only being used on a quarter of the way i have muted the computer and the receiver and still have white noise.
 
sqlsavior said:
Well, if your question was about noise in your system, you would have answered it right here. It is coming from your computer. I'd consider getting a USB DAC, to use in place of your sound card. Removing the noise might make loud parts of the music seem louder; it will definitely improve the clarity in the medium or quieter parts.
Click to expand...
What would happen if I used a dac that plugs into the sound card would I still have those problems?
 
I know exactly what you are talking about and my computer does the same thing if I use its volume control. I just leave it up all the way and just use my receiver as the volume control. If you don't want to operate it this way, then what can I say. When you are using any external amp/receiver on your computer, the amp/receiver will amplify the noise even when the computer volume is all the way down.

Reverse the process. Turn your computer volume all the way up, volume control done by receiver. Try it, you might like it. You can always go back to the old settings.
 
Cody AOC said:
What would happen if I used a dac that plugs into the sound card would I still have those problems?
Click to expand...
I would think that would be redundant, as sound cards have DACs in them. I've never heard of a sound card that offers an auxiliary port for an external DAC, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. An external USB DAC would skip the sound card entirely - if you leave the sound card in, you would have to choose between the USB DAC and the sound card for output, i.e. where to send the bits.

cademan's suggestion is a good one to try first...
 
After re-reading, I got a little confused about your hook-up. Pics if you can.

Verify if you have your setup this way:

1 - computer
2 - out from computer to receiver
3 - receiver is connected to Crown amp via RCA patch cords. Does your receiver have pre-out jacks?
4 - is you receiver just running as a preamp or do you have a set of speakers also connected to the receiver?
5 - a receiver and a separate power amplifier is a very good rockin' system so far.
 
While it's a bit hard to follow, it almost sounds like the gain structure is inverted; lower gain up front with increasing gain as you move through the chain. That usually produces not good signal to noise ratio, which is the problem "white noise".

I agree with those saying to increase the level in the computer and compensate with lower levels/gains downstream.
 
Cody AOC said:
No i use the volume on the computer as my volume control
Click to expand...
^ This is the problem.
Your computer's soundcard has a constant level of hiss which isn't a problem as long as the signal is strong. However, turning down the signal at the computer doesn't turn down the hiss and you just end up with a poor signal-to-noise ratio. You should have the soundcard flat out or nearly flat out and use a volume control further downstream.
 
In case it wasn't clear, the recommendation not to add a mixer in between because it would add to the noise is simply related to the fact that the more components you have in the chain, the more chances for each of them to add to the background noise level.
 
Yup, full board on the computer. :thumbsup:

With this setting, the signal to noise ratio makes it act more like a line level output at the computers headphone jack. It would be mega quieter to just use your receiver's controls.
 
Cody: Does the soundcard in your computer sport an optical or electrical (aka coaxial) SPDIF output? The RX-V800 should sport at least two SPDIF inputs of either sort, so you might want to try a digital hook-up via SPDIF (and if your soundcard should sport both sorts, I'd suggest to try optical first in this case for offering galvanic isolation by principle...) as an alternative. Because that would skip the DAC and analogue output section of the soundcard in favour of using the DAC and analogue output section of the Yamaha instead - and hence can be a smart way to circumvent a noisy analogue soundcard output.

That being said, you should nevertheless try as suggested above first, i.e. rather turn up the volume control of the sound card pretty high and control the listening volume on the Yamaha instead to get a higher ratio of the music signal to the noise (be that caused by the sound card itself or radiated into it by other components of your computer). But if that doesn't suffice to remove the noise, you could consider the digital alternative...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
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