I think it’s time we put this to rest. “Quite common” means it happens more often than not and that is not my experience. We do not know for certain how every one of the close to 1,000 owners of this combo connect their rigs, but from speaking with our techs, and the myriad of owners I communicate with daily, SE is the more common means of connection—something I do my best to sway folks in the other direction from—not because of an increase in noise but because balanced sounds better. Always.
So why do we read about all these problems? Because people rarely post on forums when something works. Few people report they had an uneventful day.
I completely understand when robbbby (how many r’s?) is frustrated that he had to go through all of this just to get his system to work. Shame on us for not having helped him within a matter of hours instead of making him go through hell and back just to get to the point where his system works. That’s on us and I am not happy about that at all.
Thanks for hanging in there with us. The combo is one of the best out there. If you can run balanced then by all means do so.
As a “thoughts on what Paul said” I’m thinking what is “common” is that sensitive gear will “commonly” not be dead quiet. Now, I’ve never put my ear to the speakers at my local hifi shop; I should and I will start doing this (once we’re allowed to audition in store again). But, my pre-BHK budget hifi system was dead quiet in multiple homes over many years. It was also flat as a board with zero chance of even pretending “holographic” was a thing. It was not until I put in the BHKs that I heard anything other than dead quiet. And, the more I read about people chasing power regenerators, cables, dedicated circuits, etc. etc. all in the name of “noise reduction” I can only assume that “dead quiet” is not “common”. Which is a shame but sensitive equipment will be sensitive and, as long as the hiss doesn’t increase in volume and you cannot hear it at the listening location, I don’t entirely believe its worth spending more on power generation than the rest of the system. But, please correct me if I’m wrong… The BHKs were a good step-up from my previous gear so this level of hifi is new to me. I find the performance of the BHKs, and their noise floor, perfectly acceptable with using XLR (maybe not so much on SE). The gain in presentation is well worth the niggle in lose of noise floor from my previous set-up.
I think there is marketing and there is reality. Marketing will always say the noise floor should be darker than a blackhole. Reality says this isn’t the case (and our ears agree). But how much noise is “acceptable” and when we say “common” does that really mean we’re all talking about that acceptable level or am I the one with a noise / hiss problem in my system?
*All my comments relate to hiss and noise and not hum. As others have pointed out “hum” is a grounding problem and presents differently, and at a lower frequency, than hiss. However, both can be present at the same time; but then you’re chasing two problems that require 2 solutions.