Bose Sounddock hiss - anybody ever fixed it?

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riker1384

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I have an original first-generation Bose Sounddock. It works fine, except there's a high-frequency noise whenever an Ipod is plugged in. It's not quite white noise, it has a little bit of a squealing quality to it. It's irritating when music is played at low volume, and it's especially bad when the ipod is in and I'm not playing music. I've tried it with two different Ipods and it's the same.

Bose gives me two options, either pay $90 for repair, or $180 for an upgrade to a new Sounddock Portable. I don't really want to spring for either of those, especially the repair since used ones go for $100. My only idea is to get the upgrade and sell it for profit.

Has anybody found any solution to this? I googled, one guy said there's a loose cable that causes it, but I opened it up and there didn't seem to be anything loose. Someone else said there's some issue with a noisy power supply, but I don't want to go buying a PSU if I don't know that will help.
 

Funky Discharge

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I haven't experienced this issue with mine - any problems I've had have been easily cured by simply unplugging the unit, waiting 30 seconds, and reconnecting.

In your case, however, I might suggest plugging it into different outlets throughout your home - trying different circuits and locations might do the trick. It's possible that the sound you're hearing is RF interference - your iPod(s) could be acting as a receiving antenna for radio frequency radiation from another appliance, or even from a compact fluorescent light. Or, you could be getting a little line noise on the particular circuit it's plugged into.

Now, if that doesn't work, here's a REAL wacky suggestion - contact your local technical college (like ITT Tech, or similar) and see if their electronics repair program students will do the repair. I tried this once on a hunch, and darned if they didn't fix my device!! I was only charged for parts, they got diagnostic/repair experience, so it was win/win all the way!
 

nyc-dem

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I have the same problem and can't find a fix, either. Outrageous to have a problem like this for a product in this price segment. On this Amazon page:
Amazon.com: Michael Spitzer's review of Bose SoundDock digital music system for iP...
some guy suggests doing the following:
That hissing noise can be fixed, easily. Pull the bottom plate off (It is attached by 4 screws) There is a green motherboard with 2 ribbonwires. One of the ribbonwires (the one the mounts the ribbon vertically) has loosened up. Use a tweezers to pop it back into place and that noise will disappear. This is a design flaw, as the action of inserting/removing your ipod, coupled with the action of setting your sound dock down will work this ribbon loose.
I have not tried this yet and so I can't tell you if this guy is making a disastrous recommendation or not. Someday when I'm feeling adequately annoyed and masochistic, I'll give it a shot, I suppose. FWIW, 22 out of 23 readers of the Amazon page thought the advice was useful! We shall see...
 

mr_infamy

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I have the same problem and can't find a fix, either. Outrageous to have a problem like this for a product in this price segment. On this Amazon page:
Amazon.com: Michael Spitzer's review of Bose SoundDock digital music system for iP...
some guy suggests doing the following:
That hissing noise can be fixed, easily. Pull the bottom plate off (It is attached by 4 screws) There is a green motherboard with 2 ribbonwires. One of the ribbonwires (the one the mounts the ribbon vertically) has loosened up. Use a tweezers to pop it back into place and that noise will disappear. This is a design flaw, as the action of inserting/removing your ipod, coupled with the action of setting your sound dock down will work this ribbon loose.
I have not tried this yet and so I can't tell you if this guy is making a disastrous recommendation or not. Someday when I'm feeling adequately annoyed and masochistic, I'll give it a shot, I suppose. FWIW, 22 out of 23 readers of the Amazon page thought the advice was useful! We shall see...
You're joking!

I wonder if that would explain why all of a sudden I've been hearing those hissing and background noises a lot more since I took my SoundDock II on a trip with me. I do kind of treat it like a boom box. I did wonder why all of a sudden I could hear hissing and large ammounts of GSM noise, which was odd, for a 'Made for iPhone' product. I just though since it was out of warranty it was starting to go west.

If It was this easy on my old B&W Zeppelin I wouldn't have gotten rid of it! I'll have to give this a go ASAP.
 

mr_infamy

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Update on the 'surgery':
Well I didn't kill it, but I didn't fix it, either. I think I'll wait until it really goes south and then get someone who actually knows what they're doing to look at it. The ribbon cable is definitely there, but unless I'm missing something it doesn't stay very solidly plugged in.

As i said, it's working fine again now, so I'll wait until somehting really goes worng then get Bose to look at it properly. It's already out of warranty, so it's not like it was going to be a free repair either way.
 

stong

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I know this is an old thread, but I needed the answer and found it. The OP did a good job with the squealing description. I believe it is from wifi interference when using a wifi enabled ipod or iPhone. I use Pandora and it was annoying. I even bought a dock extension cord (to get my iphone away from the dock) to see if that would get rid of it and it didn't - still the annoying squeal. Someone gave me a bluetooth dock adapter, so that I could link up to the dock via bluetooth. This is the one I think I have:
(you'll have to search, since I just joined, I can't link)
search "bluewave bluetooth audio receiver"
But there seem to be many others:
search "TekuOne wireless bluetooth receiver"

The problem is that these won't work right away with the first get Sound Dock since Apple changed the power pin along the way, so you need to get an adapter that allows the power to get to the bluetooth adapter: search "Sosche iPod charging adapter for new iPod"

I happened to have this Sosche adapter so I really didn't spend any money to make this work but just wanted to post that the annoying squeal is gone.
You end up with two little stacked dongles sitting in your dock but it works.

My feeling is that it is better to re-use, revive rather than throw out.
 

leonhardrocha

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Managed to remove the hiss

Hi, I don't know how old this thread is, but helped me a lot to solve the hissing problem without any special apparatus. I just turned the airplane function on, but this alone did not solved the problem at first. Then I turned of the display and the hissing was gone :)questionmark:)! But when changing tracks, the display turns on and the hissing begins again. I just removed the iPhone and put back (with the airplane mode on) and then even the display does not bring back the hissing. If this does not remains true longer, I will update the thread. Thanks for the hints! :)
 

sallenmd

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Hi, I don't know how old this thread is, but helped me a lot
Each post is dated, so it is clear to all that the thread is six years old with the most recent post prior to yours being in 2012. The fact that it helped you after all these years shows the value of keeping old stuff around.
 

WillTrueoh

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Hissing like a snake

Mine started hissing after all these years. I have the Bluetooth connector and had bought a PCB board a few years ago because the iphone dock broke. I've just started troubleshooting it and I'll post an update in a few weeks. Yes, I know it's 2017....:)
 

alperrozanes

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Hi Will, did you get to fix this? Is it the Innexis bluetooth board that you installed? I did that and now I get a hissing sound which seems to be affected by the movements of the power connector. Yes, I know it's late 2018 :)
 
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