Presonus Audiobox question (headphones)

[Quintin]

I gotta question. Lets say I'm not recording and i plug in my headphones to my audio interface. I put my headphones on an turn the volume up all the way on the headphones. There are no mic hooked up to the audio interface.  Im hearing a hiss sound with the  all the way up volume up. If i turn it to 12Oclock the noise is gone. Whats is this noise? Is it suppose to be there? 

[starise]

You're hearing the harmonic distortion from the circuitry in the interface.Harmonic distortion is the noise the headphone amp circuitry makes. It's always there but you don't notice it as much at lower volumes.

 The source recording should be loud enough that you never need to turn up your volume more than 3/4. All prosumer gear has this problem and the best way to avoid it is to use gain staging during the recording process.

The cheapest preamps will have more noise than the better gear.

[Quintin]

Thanks I will research more on gain staging