Hissing sound coming from tweeters

Did you try the cheater plugs? It is a common solution to hiss/hum problems? May not be elegant, but it does work in lots of cases. If it has no effect, you are out $10 at most. You probably need different amps, but the cheater plugs may buy you some time. If it really is a ground loop problem, different amps may or may not help.

You're a smart guy Al. It's been a while since I have worked with that kind of math. It seems like there must be more to it than the gain on these amps that's causing the hiss. There are plenty of people out there running Klipsch with Emotivas/Mcintosh and don't experience the ridiculous amount of hiss I'm experiencing. Even if I picked up an Ayre V-5xe, that amp still specs gain of 26db which wouldn't help my case either.

I just want a good solid state amp that can rock hard and won't cause a bunch of hiss through my tweeters. I could hook up my old Klipsch KG4's and see what happens. They are rated at 94db.

Just tried it with the Klipsch KG4 and it the tweeters hissed just as much. I never had this problem before using my Marantz 2270 as a preamp with the Emotivas. Why is this Ayre preamp brining on the hiss? >_<

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I agree you have more power and gain than you need but that is not causing your problem. In any case I think everyone is over thinking this.

Now that we know you did not have an issue with your previous preamp isn't the problem obvious?

......Before the Ayre hiss not a problem

......With the Ayre hiss is a problem

We're going around in circles here talking about gain. Either something is wrong with the Ayre or there is some weird interaction with your amps but probably the former. Maybe the reason the previous owner sold the Ayre is they had some annoying hiss? Have you contacted Ayre about getting it checked out?

I don't agree it could be a cabling or ground issue. A hum problem yes but hiss no.

How about building a little passive pre out of some Radio Shack parts and see how that sounds? May be all you need.

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I'm taking the Ayre in to the hifi store on Saturday and will try hooking it up to some of their gear just to make sure there is nothing wrong with my preamp. While I'm there, I might as well demo it with some other power amps to get an idea of how it will sound. Only problem is they dont have any speakers with horn loaded tweeters, so it might be like comparing apples to oranges. I think my preamp just doesn't like the cheap emotivas for some reason. My system is lacking synergy.