tried both and no change. I don't have Event Style, was that removed from 18.0.212? A little more info on my setup, I've selected Internal volume and my amp is set at 50 percent. I thought is was a driver, so I uninstalled and replaced the Realtek and C-Media drivers multiple times. I even bought a SSD and rebuilt my system to make sure drivers weren't an issue. I've pulled all drives and PSU to remove possible noise and turned off all fans but the AMD processor. Still getting that leaking tire sound. I'm running my main zone with the HDMI from the ATI graphics card. No noise but I wouldn't expect any. Before I connected to the ATI card I used the motherboard optical which worked fine. It's only when i add additional zones that the problem arises. Analog out through green 3.5mm connector and headphone makes noise. Digital through USB makes noise. So why is digital through optical and HDMI ok?
What you're describing sounds very much like electrical noise coming from somewhere inside your computer (probably the motherboard if you already tried a different PSU). You're right that normally USB outputs are better isolated from electrical noise, but not always. There have been several forum members here with extremely noisy motherboards that got electrical interference from DACs connected through their USB ports. It's not a matter of the interference affecting the digital audio signal, it's a matter of the electrical interference adding noise to the analog outputs of the USB DAC that's electrically connected to the motherboard. It's especially a problem when the USB DAC draws it's power supply from the USB port (like the Behringer), for obvious reasons.
The reason you don't hear it through the optical output is because optical links don't create an electrical connection between the components, they pass the data as light, so there's no opportunity for EMI. The HDMI output from the graphics card is probably better isolated from whatever part of your system is creating the electrical noise.
As for why you hear it when playback is paused, but not when it's stopped, I'm not sure, except to say that I once had a soundcard that was picking up motherboard noise that exhibited similar behavior: there was much more static and hiss when it was playing silence than when playback was stopped. It was always making noise, it was just much, much louder when playback wasn't stopped. It's possible that the interference is below the noise floor of your room when playback is stopped.
I'd try plugging the Behringer into different USB ports to see if that affects the noise at all. It may be that some ports are much quieter than others, which would point towards electrical noise.
Check out gtgray's posts in this thread for a description of his difficulty in getting USB DACs isolated from a noisy motherboard :
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84421.msg577095#msg577095
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Topic: Hissing fit (Read 2868 times)