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[Matt]

mojave sent me his MR816 to play with

Initially when I hooked up the MR816 I had a lot of noise in the speakers. I discovered that I needed to use the drivers to mute the inputs. This greatly reduced the noise. However, on two sets of speakers with three different amps there is still a slight his when the ear is put all the way up to the tweeter. An inch away and you can't hear it.

I'm getting a lot of noise, even when playback is stopped.

If I turn it off, it's silent.  I turn it on and it makes a little noise.  Then I play and stop and it keeps making a lot of noise.

If it's making noise while stopped and I unplug the firewire cable, it goes silent.  I don't know if this means it's coming in through the firewire, or if it doesn't mean anything.

The noise seems independent of the hardware volume.

Am I missing some extra mute setting?:

[Matt]

I've tried two different firewire cables and two firewire ports (although the front and back panels are probably the same controller).

So far, it doesn't help the noise.  The noises I'm hearing are most similar to the noise on the analog outputs of a cheap motherboard soundcard.

Since the MR816 can get really loud compared to a normal sound card, it's possible the S/N ratio wouldn't be bad at 100%.  It's just that I could never really use 100% since my ears would melt, so I only care about the S/N ratio at low levels.

I've seen a few other people reporting noise with the MR816, so I'm wondering if it's just not a good fit for connecting direct to a power amplifier, especially when using high sensitivity speakers like I have.

[JimH]

Mojave is half way through his steak with his wife in Omaha.  It might be a while.

[MrC]

Mojave is half way through his steak with his wife in Omaha.  It might be a while.

At first my mind's eye read this as:

Mojave is half way through staking his wife in Omaha.  It might be a while.

[mojave]

The steak isn't until tonight.

What is the sensitivity of your speakers? I used the MR816x with 89 db 1w/1m speakers and could only hear noise with my ear right up to the tweeter. I've also used it with 97 db speakers at the 2011 Subwoofter GTG in Omaha. You still needed your ear about 6 inches from the tweeter to hear noise. With some JTR Noesis speakers (105 db) I could hear noise from a foot or two away. I have never heard any noise over the woofer. Any noise has always been very high in frequency.

The MR816x can be used as a standalone device once you setup routing with a computer. This means that output without the Firewire cable is indicative of any noise actually produced by the device. I've used it on 3 different computers with very low noise. I did have variations in the computers in the Firewire buffer that I had to use, but those variations were causing dropouts.

You look like you have muted everything. I can't think of anything else that needs to be muted. I repeated the mutes for the other outputs, too.

Do you have an Nvidia or ATI card? My ATI card had some real high spikes that showed up in DPC latency tester. This caused dropouts, not noise.

Do you have a Texas Instruments Firewire controller? Those are supposed to work best with the MR816x.

Here are some more tips:
Solving Problems with an MR Interface
Optimizing Windows for DAWs

I just checked the block diagram in the manual. With the UR824 I can use outputs 10-17 and bypass the mixer. With the MR816x, all DAW (or JRiver) outputs go through the mixer.

I'd also be curious if you notice a difference after running Fidelizer 3.0.

I didn't send this to you for you to have to do a lot of trouble shooting. You can just use it as a preamp for your microphone. However, it may be informative if you do find something on the computer causing the noise.

[mojave]

Here is another article from Steinberg that suggests increasing the Firewire buffer if you still get noise when the ASIO buffers are at their maximum or you are using certain brands of Firewire chipsets.

Resolving Audio Performance Issues

[Matt]

I don't know the exact sensitivity of my speakers, but I know it's pretty high (around 98 dB).

I'm normally about 12 feet from the main speakers but if I sit at my desk, I'm right next to one of them.

The noise is easily audible anywhere in the room.  As a comparison, my internal X-Fi has a noise that's only audible within one foot of the tweeter.  I've tried a lot of soundcards in the machine, but none have had this much line noise.

And remember the noise is there even if the device isn't playing.  I'm guessing it's just noise on the firewire line and the device doesn't isolate it well.  I'm using the integrated firewire adapter on the motherboard.  The machine is an overclocked i7 2600k with nVidia 680 GTX.

The noise is a little surprising, because one of the arguments for an external DAC is that you can get away from this type of thing.

[mojave]

I think you are getting a lot more noise than I ever got. Here is someone at GearSlutz that looks like a similar issue:  unacceptable levels of noise from computer with Steinberg MR816x.

[Matt]

I wonder if it's worth getting a PCI or PCIe Firewire card?

Does the USB version (UR824) isolate the system noise better?

I wonder if this is a problem with all firewire interfaces like the AudioFire, etc.?

[natehansen66]

I have an AudioFire, and initially used my mobo's firewire output. Noise wasn't an issue, but stutter was. I got a recommended PCI firewire card and the stutter was taken care of. The speakers I used at that time weren't very efficient so noise even from my mobo's analog outs wasn't too bad, and I had the gain structure set so that the interface would output near full level at the loudest I ever listen.

IIRC Matt, you use internal volume right? I think it's good practice to do most of the attenuation at the amp, and allow the interface to play near full scale (giving yourself a bit of headroom) to maximize the use of the bit-depth and snr. Here's an excellent article on gain staging: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/diyaudio-com-articles/186018-what-gain-structure.html

[Matt]

IIRC Matt, you use internal volume right? I think it's good practice to do most of the attenuation at the amp, and allow the interface to play near full scale (giving yourself a bit of headroom) to maximize the use of the bit-depth and snr. Here's an excellent article on gain staging: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/diyaudio-com-articles/186018-what-gain-structure.html

I use a power amp with no volume.

This means an interface with low line noise is critical, since it is the preamp.

I'm currently using an X-Fi, which has virtually no noise.  The same was true of the exaSound e18, HT Omega, and Asus cards I've tested.  Some older studio cards and other cheaper cards do have too much noise.  Pops when you power cycle is another possible problem, but luckily it only occurs with some hardware.

[Matt]

I tried a PCI VIA Firewire card we had sitting around the office in the machine tonight.

The noise is much better.

There's still a little line noise, but it's more in line with a regular soundcard.  You can hear it within a few feet, but it's not disruptive.

So now I'll hookup all the speakers, calibrate it, and have some fun

[Matt]

I tried a second PCI firewire card (NEC).  The amount of line noise is comparable to the VIA card.

The noise is acceptable, but more than I would like since its audible from the seating position.

It's not as loud as the fan in my projector that's right above my head, so I suppose I should just ignore it.  Or maybe I should take the fan out of my projector...

[gappie]

im a bit ( ) confused, following this thread. why would the firewire card matter so much? ive been using two for a long time now, one to connect my rme fireface. and sure, when i put everything as maxed out as i can, i hear some noise but i would not want to play anything then. when my speakers would hold i would have the german army storming the city. would expect the steinberger to be the same. are you sure you are not feeding some noise from one of its inputs?

 
gab

[jdubs]

Was it ever established whether or not the usb version is quieter than the firewire version?

-Jim

[mwillems]

Was it ever established whether or not the usb version is quieter than the firewire version?

-Jim

I've never played with the firewire version, but I do have the USB version (UR824) and some very sensitive speakers (113dB 1W/1 Meter), and I can confirm that it's quiet enough to use with them.  I did some testing with speakers of different sensitivities and an amplifier that is completely quiet at idle.  The UR824 when paired with the 113 sensitivity speakers produces a soft hiss audible from a few feet away.  Using it with 96 dB sensitivity speakers the hiss is only audible if you place your ear right next to the speaker.  With a pair of 89 dB sensitivity speakers it's completely inaudible to me.    

It makes sense that the UR824 would be quieter than the 816 just looking at the rated specs; the UR824 has a significantly lower noise rating and a wider dynamic range.  Over here, mojave also indicated that the USB version was much quieter: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77508.msg525896#msg525896

[jdubs]

I've never played with the firewire version, but I do have the USB version (UR824) and some very sensitive speakers (113dB 1W/1 Meter), and I can confirm that it's quiet enough to use with them.  I did some testing with speakers of different sensitivities and an amplifier that is completely quiet at idle.  The UR824 when paired with the 113 sensitivity speakers produces a soft hiss audible from a few feet away.  Using it with 96 dB sensitivity speakers the hiss is only audible if you place your ear right next to the speaker.  With a pair of 89 dB sensitivity speakers it's completely inaudible to me.    

It makes sense that the UR824 would be quieter than the 816 just looking at the rated specs; the UR824 has a significantly lower noise rating and a wider dynamic range.  Over here, mojave also indicated that the USB version was much quieter: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77508.msg525896#msg525896

Perfect.  Thank you, sir!

-Jim

[Ninouchka]

my steinberg MR816X is connected via analog outputs to an Yamaha Aventage receiver,
using converters from the TRS balanced outputs to RCA unbalanced inputs on the Aventage.
I don't have noise coming from the Texas Instr firewire connection on the gigabyte motherboard.
Using my PCIe firewire card, also T.I. from Amazon, its also noiseless but a bit more stable and 2 ms lower latency than the onboard one.
Are you sure, that the pretty big power supply is not touching other cables?
Maybe some earth loop?