Submitted by Blair on Mon, 06/05/2017 - 09:16

Hey guys,

I'm new here so apologies if I could have posted this in a better section :)

Today I purchased some 2nd hand Rokit 6's. They sound amazing when hooked up to my Roland MC505 but when I add a 1/4 > 3.5mm adaptor so I can plug them into my PC...I get this nasty whistling noise when plugged in. It sounds like a slight breeze is going through the speakers. I can't hear the noise when music is playing from the PC.

I tried turning off router and putting the Rokit's on their own power adapter/extension - no luck.

The set up is as follows:
1/4 inch mono from each Rokit > 1/4 inch stereo jack male to twin mono 1/4 inch female adapter > 1/4 stereo to 3.5mm adaptor

How can I eliminate this whistling noise?

I should add it gets worse when increase the volume on the back of the Rokit.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

If I understand correctly, you are connecting a line level signal to your computer's 3.5mm input (either line or mic input)
I'm guessing this is a mic input and it's not made to receive line level (which is hotter than a mic)
The best thing you could do is buy an audio interface and you'll get way better recordings. Good ones ; Presonus or Focusrite Scarlett.

Blair, post: 450727, member: 50624 wrote: So you're saying this could be caused by heat?

Hotter meening higher levels...
Sorry I mixed things up.. Your connector (the green one) is a line level output so the levels should match.
Thing is, I'm not surprised you hear noises because onboard soundcards are very cheap compared to a dedicated audio interface.
Where it goes side ways is about the ground isolations. If it's a notebook, try to run in on the battery. You could use a ground lift on the computer's outlet and put the computer volume to the maximum and set the monitors to lower volume, it should help a bit..
But in the end getting an audio interface will give best results...

Blair, post: 450731, member: 50624 wrote: This is all new to me so could you tell me where to start with an audio interface?

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Scarlet2i2G2
or
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB96

They both have 2 mic/line inputs so you can plug your 505 in stereo, the interface will take audio in your computer to be recorded and out to be monitored.

What kind of project do you want to do ?

Blair, post: 450741, member: 50624 wrote: Is it simply down to my PC's sound card quality?

Yes and the fact that the IPhone isn't plugged to the wall with a seperate (not so well isolated) alimentation.

Seriously, I can't tell why they never resolved this but I always had bad audio results with onboard soundcard since I started to record back in the 90's (yes I am that old !! )
The first thing I did was adding an internal soundcard like a Soundblaster but it was only 16bit44khz with bad converters.
Going to a dedicated audio interface made for recording is an investment that you won't regret.

Cool thanks for the advice. Not at all. The 90's was the best time to be making music :p

Would a certain driver for my sound card help? I read about one called ASIO4ALL It helps with latency issues apparently?

My left speaker is also cutting out with this set up. Jiggling the cables helps. The cables are brand new! Maybe i'm best using the RCA cables > 3.5mm.

Blair, post: 450744, member: 50624 wrote: Jiggling the cables helps. The cables are brand new!

There is levels of quality in cables. 3.5mm to 1/4inches may come to a variety of prices and isolation quality and it's sometime hard to know which to choose,..
If you play with them and the sound changes, make sure it's not the connector Inside the monitors and get a better cable.. unless you go with an interface in which case it's gonna be other cable format anyway...

Drivers for soundcards won't change noises produced at the electronic circuit level. But yes they may help for latency issues. Latency is when you apply an effect in realtime in a your computer and the audio comming from the instrument takes time to be processed and get back to the monitors. There is always some degree of latency but when it gets noticed and you have trouble playing in time, that's a problem. For exemple, you tap on your guitar and ear 2 hits, (the direct one and the delayed processed one).

Again most audio interfaces have low latency exactly for that reason. The mostly use asio drivers (supported by music software) which are way more efficient.

Blair, post: 450744, member: 50624 wrote: Jiggling the cables helps.

that could be bad connectors on the computer.

Blair, post: 450738, member: 50624 wrote: At the moment I just wanted to be able to use my Rokit's as PC speakers with no static or whistling. Would an audio interface allow me to do so?

if your not trying to produce a hit record and all you want to do is listen to your computer through your KRK's , the cheepo way to do it is to buy one of these and one of these. no drivers, no updates. USB buss powered so no power supply. they've been around for years and they keep making them. it just works. i don't usually push their stuff but that one's a goodie.

later you can add a pre amp or small mixer, you could even record a couple of channels of audio per pass if you like. is it the "best" quality? no, it's 16 bit 48k and cheap 16 bit 48k at that. but it's better than what you are doing and plenty good enough to play or make You Tube content.

plug the box into the computers USB port. go out of the box via the RCA cable into the KRKs. select USB play in your sound settings. set volume with your computers volume control in the control panel. less than 40 bucks total.