I was interested in using a program like Game Buddy to interact with FS 2004, so I first tried hooking up some high quality headphones to see what the sim sounded like on headphones.When I use the headphones to listen to music, the sound is crystal clear with no background static.With FS 2004 there is a very annoying background static that can be heard superimposed on the sounds FS 2004 makes.If I pause the sim, the static is very noticeable. If I click on a menu item it disappears until I reenter the sim where it reappears. If I terminate the program it disappears.Thus there is no doubt that the program creates it.Setting sound quality to high has no impact.It bothers me enough that I would not want to use headphones.Anyone have any ideas?ThanksGreg

When you use the headphones to listen to music, what type of music? Off of CD, or mp3?When listening to any .wav based sound via headphones (which is what MSFS is) or mp3, I pull up the "Master Out" settings, and I mute line-in, MIDI, CD Audio, and Mic Balance. The more sources muted, the clearer the sound on some sound cards.Also, some sound cards use DSP (Digital Signal Processing) to apply effects to the sound, such as echo, reverb, etc... DSP can cause some real problems with certain types of sound, and even can cause overall sound distortion under certain circumstances.Reducing base and treble (found by clicking "Advanced") can also helpLast, to preserve size, the .wav files MSFS includes are not the highest of quality. There will be some noise audible in the sounds. But I certainly hear no static on those evenings my wife doesn't want to hear the droning of my 421's engines :)-John

I'm using my onboard C-Media AC97 sound card, not the best setup one could wish for. I use headphones only, as the sound disturbs others. I don't notice any static in Flightsim.I do hear what I'll describe as hiss when the system is accessing my HD, but only if there's no other sound. Flightsim, music, and so on covers it up. You could play the wav files one at a time to see if you can find the offending one(s). It'd take a while, but everybody needs a hobby.:-smile12

There was a thread about "background" chatter that people noticed a while ago. There seemed to be general agreement that it was there, and that it was put there intentionally. It's sort of like listening to AM radio when there is a quiet section of a Bach contata and you can almost make out Wolfman Jack talking in the background - you get the voice but can't make out the words. In an ideal world, you hear only the person you're communicating with. In the real world, though, you might hear someone talking on the same frequency just beyond the nominal range of your radio.No radio band is entirely free from noise, and any voice band will be subject to this sort of thing. It's a cliche, but simulating this cross-talk is just getting closer to "as real as it gets."