Black backgrounds and such

I've always likened it to those Elvis painting on velvet. In the audio sphere
I've used the analogy often for what I hear with a well designed tube amp versus a well designed transistor amp. The tube unit will get notes coming out of a dead quiet. The transistor unit will have something busy in the background. It's like there is some Brownian movement or some quantum creation and dissolution at the molecular level that, in quiet passages, you can feel present. Now I know Brownian movement or quantum activity are on any technical level factually misleading and incorrect, still, there's something happening that does not go away there.


With a black backdrop it goes Midnight in the Graveyard quiet. Elvis on a silk background is not like Elvis on a velvet surface. It's nothing if you haven't noticed it. If you don't zone in on it, it's nothing. Once it becomes a possibility in your awareness it becomes imperative. I can't live with a busy background. In effect, listening for blackness is listening for nothing. Is it an obsession to listen for nothing?

Might be, very well might be, but what is this whole hobby but an obsession?

esthlos13,
To me, hiss, hum, buzz, anything that detracts during quiet passages destroys a black backdrop. What i was mentioning is that for an amplifier that really is well designed, tube units seem to have less in the background during quiet passages. This is for units that are basically quiet quiet quiet.

If a unit is not quiet to start with, there is no black background. When it's right you get the notes splashed in color across a wide canvas. There's nothing to distract you except noise in the street and perhaps the refrigerator doing what it does. Generally, unless it's quiet in your room already, say that you're listening at night, you won't notice what I'm talking about at all.

If it's dark and quiet though, and there is a diminuendo followed by silence, you want silence. That's the whole idea. At those times, if there's noise of any sort, including a silk instead of a velvet backdrop, you notice.

Those times at night are when you really hear, not when you're blasting the dance music out. Honestly, most of the time it's just not something you even think about.


Tonight, when it's quiet and there is no traffic going by and the cat's asleep,
see if you can feel the system being on or not. Most times, you can.It's great when you have to look at the indicator lights to tell.

That's a black backdrop.