Team-BHP - Audio Hiss - Is this to be expected?

Hi all,

I am a newbie to ICE. Last week I got my first stage of ICE installed on my new Swift. Nothing much. Just the HU and the front speakers. The HU was Blaupunkt Maui and the front were JBL 607 components.

In my next stage (probably in a month or two) I have decided to go in for the rears and an amp (haven't decided on the models yet). I am not going in for a sub at all since I like my music to remain unobtrusive (Got conditioned to years of complaining neighbours).

I got the installation done and everything seeemed to be fine. However I noticed that when I set the volume a bit loud around say, level 30, (the Blau manual says the max volume level is 68) I noticed some hiss in between tracks like the kind you get in cassette tapes and when there is
some silence during the track. This hiss is loud enough to be annoying. Ofcourse this gets drowned out when the music starts to play. I assumed it was my cd which basically had mp3's of various bitrates. But I noticed this in the FM mode as well when there is dead air. The hiss is present even in mp3 tracks of 256Kbps, but at low volumes it is not noticeable.

My question is this. Is this hiss to be expected given that I dont have an amp powering the JBL 607s and they are just being run off the HU? Or could there be a problem in the HU or the speakers. Does the wiring have to be checked or could it be a crossover issue.

Gurus please help.

Thanks...

Is the hiss heard on all music. Take an original well pressed CD (something from SONY BMG or other major manufacturer) and listen to that. If the hiss is dependant on some particular tracks it could be hiss that is on the music (try the same music on other systems and see if you can hear the hiss). If the hiss is persistant and on all music my guess is that your HU needs servicing.