Grainy ambient noise when playing audio on headphones

[jjl]

I've recently considered using my N95 to replace my iPod, at least for short trips since as of yet we don't have huge memory cards. Has anyone else noticed that the audio has slight, but definitely audible background noise? I imagine it's probably due to electrical interference with all of the stuff inside the N95. Are there any workarounds, e.g., some things to disable (at least when playing music) to minimize interference? Or other ways? Thanks.

[DaveW]

I really only hear noise between tracks. Is that what you are talking about?

[salada2k]

I think this happens to everyone, certainly every N95 I've owned (4). Just to make sure we're all on the same page you should be able to plug your headphones in, (don't have any music playing),and then press *any* button, there should be exactly one second of the noise you are talking about that comes through the headphones, for any button you press. Make sure to have keypad tones ON.

Can you hear it?

It's the same noise that is always there at any time the N95 is outputting some kind of sound. It's a slight underscore of 'hiss' to everything. I don't think there is anyway around it. Lucky for you the human brain conditions itself to such noises and edits them out, after a short while you shouldn't be able to notice unless you deliberately concentrate on it.

[jjl]

Yes, it is the "hiss" that I'm talking about - if I plug in headphones and listen to the key tone, that is the same hiss as when I'm listening to my music. However, it's not just between tracks, I can hear it during all of the music! I guess I don't hear it as much when the music is loud, but during quieter parts it definitely comes out. I agree that eventually you learn to ignore it if you don't think about it, but I can't stop thinking about it because it's always there! One of those things where the more you try not to think about it, the louder it gets...

[DaveW]

The phones must be different because I did some tests on this with mine and when music is on the silent parts of it are almost completely unnoticeable.

I would say replace you phone or at least listen to the same thing in several more phones and see if yours is worse.

[salada2k]

Originally Posted by DaveW

The phones must be different because I did some tests on this with mine and when music is on the silent parts of it are almost completely unnoticeable.

I would say replace you phone or at least listen to the same thing in several more phones and see if yours is worse.

Do you get the 1 second of hiss when pressing a button on the keypad DaveW with headphones plugged in??

[herluf]

My phone also generates a rather loud hissing noise when playing music. Don't know if it has been mentioned, but if the noise is too much of a bother, then use a bluetooth stereo-headset like the bh-500 (which is the only one officially supported by the n95) and the noise is no longer an issue.

[jjl]

Originally Posted by herluf

My phone also generates a rather loud hissing noise when playing music. Don't know if it has been mentioned, but if the noise is too much of a bother, then use a bluetooth stereo-headset like the bh-500 (which is the only one officially supported by the n95) and the noise is no longer an issue.

Just curious, but how does using that particular headset remove the noise? Will other bluetooth headsets have the same hissing issue, but not this one for some reason?

I don't have a bluetooth headset, but my guesses are either:
1) Suppose the problem is just with the audio port on the phone. In that case, none of the bluetooth headsets should have a problem.
2) Suppose the problem is in the phone's audio chip. I also hear a faint hissing noise from the audio coming out of the ear speaker (when I'm making phone calls), so I think this is the likely situation. In such a case, I would expect all bluetooth headsets to have the same hissing problem as well.
3) Suppose the problem is with my headphones. Well, it could be, but I tried many different sets of (wired, not bluetooth) headphones.
4) Maybe there's just a lot of electrical interference, which would explain why the wired headset as well as the phone's ear-speaker have the hissing problem, but not bluetooth. But still, I might expect either all bluetooth headsets to have the same problem, or none..

Have you tried this with other bluetooth headsets other than the one you mentioned? Did you have any problems with those?

[salada2k]

Some headsets have built in noise cancelling. I don't mean external noise canceliing (the expensive ones) but just general noise cancelling. Nokia should have built it in to the audio output of the N95... But it doesn't surprise me that some headsets will perform better than others in that situation.

[jjl]

Originally Posted by salada2k

Some headsets have built in noise cancelling. I don't mean external noise canceliing (the expensive ones) but just general noise cancelling. Nokia should have built it in to the audio output of the N95... But it doesn't surprise me that some headsets will perform better than others in that situation.

I'm a little bit dubious about that (besides, the BH-500 as mentioned above does not seem to have noise cancelling listed on the specs). The main reason is that if the noise is part of the actual audio signal that is being transmitted, a noise cancelling circuit would have no way of knowing what to filter out... unless somehow the N95's noise pattern is predictable and the BH-500 compensates exactly for that, but then in such cases you'd get a lot of noise if you use the BH-500 with any other device.

I'm just disappointed that I can't use my expensive external noise cancelling headphones (or any) to play music on the N95, because the noise really does get to me. Alas, I guess I can't use my N95 to replace my iPod...