if you swap them, does the issue remain on same speaker, or on audio interface output channel, or audio cable path?

 

Yeah issue remains whichever cable is used, I'm sure it's a speaker issue but I wonder if it could be lessened with some better cables or if it needs a wiring job

 

What you really need is to do correct gain staging and forget about it. Someone in the thread already mentioned this. But I will give you an analogy about it, because we have all seen this in audio "problems" like "my audiophile seakers are .1dB different from one another" (real thread on here), or other tiny little annoying detail they cannot overlook and just keep going on and on about it. You are in what in auto dealerships designate their first year guys from those walking in off the street with a mechanical engineering degree to factory school trained guys; and that assignment is called Squeaks and Leaks. Or some form of that. What that means is tiny little annoyances customers complain about that no person would ever actually pay anyone to address, if their ride wasn't still within warranty. Things like "when I drive over this specific railroad crossing at whatever street, the back wheel squeaks", or the trunk leaks water in heavy rainstorms with a west to southwest wind. So into the trunk the new guy goes for a car ride in the rain.

So when you arrive at a situation like "when I crank my monitors to 100% input sensitivity, one has a hiss", you are going to keep doing whatever is bothering you, like a fixation on it. We've all seen this in audio, and probably done the same thing. Instead of the answer to lower the input sensitivity and gain stage with your computer and interface completely up so there is no digital attenuation, and then bringing your monitors up to a calibrated 85dB using a smartphone SPL meter; you are opting to make your monitors do what you hear as a problem. And likely, the hiss only is audible with no incoming audio and is gone as soon as you start playing audio through them...

So it ends up being a fish or cut bait scenario. If you can fix them yourself or know someone who can, that's one thing. But since they are out of warranty, you're going to get stuck paying for a repair. Figure out what an hour of a technicians' bench time is what you will be paying if you can't fix it yourself or get help online. Do you really want to spend $100 bucks or so, to fix a $169 monitor, new or like $50 bucks used on Reverb.com?

Better cables will be worth your money, because you will be able to use them no matter the outcome. But proper gain staging first is free. Returning a pair of more expensive higher quality cables to a local store when they don't work would also be free, if you confirm the same thing that way, anyway. People buy and return the wrong cables all the time.

 

Last edited: Apr 18, 2026 at 9:39 PM

Huh?? The S is still the sleeve ground in a TRS cable, and has NOTHING to do with whatever noise reduction you get from a mono balanced TRS connection. It's the same cable with one extra lead in the bunch. The tip and ring are positive and negative phase versions of the signal the balanced input puts back together to remove any added noise along the way. The sleeve is still the ground, always. You get none of the 'effects' of this when using it as a stereo connector.

 

If you're having issues with a single side wherein cable swapping does not peg the issue to the cable or the line level source channel then you may have an issue with the speaker itself.

 

Putting your speakers (or any other audio device) on 100% is never a good idea and will lead into issues you encounter.

If you put any amplifier (as in your speakers) on 100% it’s surely going to make a ‘hissing’ noise.

I always use this method to calibrate speakers (make sure your speaker are turned to ‘0 volume’ before starting this!) :

1. Download some SPL meter on your phone or pad and make sure it works.
2. Open your Daw and initiate an input channel with a ‘pink noise’ generator.
3. Make sure the input level reaches exactly the unity level.(-0 db)
4.Make sure the output channel also reaches unity.
5.Make sure you measure on the position where you think your head will be during listening and put the phone/pad there.
6.Start playback from your DAW on the left channel only and start measuring the level on your phone/pad.
7.Now start measuring the level with your app while turning up the level of the left speaker until you reach a level of 80db.
8.Do the same for the right channel. So you should disable the left channel in your daw so only the right channel is audible.
9.Again turn the level knob up until you reach 80db SPL.
10.Eventually the knobs on your speakers will probably be something like 20-40% of their range?

You should now have the correct calibration and should not hear anymore noise?

XLR Cables: Many people will say you need to buy (more) expensive XLR cables, because that’s the solution. But that’s a load of BS.
More expensive cables do just the same as cheap ones do. They zero out impurity in the signal chain. The quality of the cables only starts to make sense after maybe 30 to 90 meters!

If you, after performing what I described, keep having noise and you’re already using XLR cables, you may have a ground loop.

But that's a whole different story and a much more complicated!