Hi, I've been eliminating noise sources around my home studio (electrical, dimmers, wireless hubs, cheap cables, etc) and of course the addition of the Fireface UCX was a huge help, compared to my cheap interfaces, and I think I have gotten things in order finally.  But I've gotten very sensitive to anything that might cause the slightest unwanted noise, but at some point you have to say enough is enough and put it to rest and move on to the fun, so I just had a quick question about the Headphone output levels.

If I record a "blank track" using the Mic/Line input 1 only with no cable plugged into the interface input, with all levels normal (zero) in the UCX and no added Gain, as well as normal levels my DAW (Sonar x1), when I listen to the blank track with the 7/8 Headphone output (using headphones) turned up to "0", should I be hearing a white-noise type of sound?  This is a consistent white noise sound, not a modulating static type of sound, and of course if I turn the output higher, it gets louder.  The settings like HiGain, etc, don't change anything, other than what they are supposed to do (more signal output level, less signal, etc).

Just want to know if this is normal for the unit, I think this may be quite normal and I am just over-driving something by having the 7/8 turned up to "0", but I don't hear the sound when I monitor the blank recording, only when I play it back with the headphones, so I wanted to make sure.  I thought that with 7/8 turned up to 0, that I should expect a blank track with no audio detected, which indeed may be the case, so I just want to verify that the sound I'm hearing through the headphone when I listen is because my levels on the 7/8 output are just turned up too high.

Thanks for any help you can provide, hopefully just a "yes, that's normal" will be the answer and I can move on and stop chasing ghosts

-- John

ps.  using a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones to check this, if that matters, and I also tried it using Reaper with similar results, just to eliminate Sonar from the picture.