Noise floors


I'd like to address an issue that every single audiophile experiences, that being inherent/ambient steady state noise floors. Here we spend so much effort and money on our equipment in order to lower noise floor and increase resolution, transparency, only to lose some percentage of it on relatively high ambient noise floors. By this I mean the noise generated internally by home, hvac systems and so much more, add to that external, outside the home generated noise. Measuring over many years, over large variables, lowest readings of mid 20db to highest mid 50db in my dedicated listening room, these are steady state readings, any particular system in house may activate and or outdoor generated noises, which are even more variable, may kick in raising if from here.

And so, while we can address both these internal and external generated noise floors to some extent, we can't rid ourselves entirely of them. I presume there are widely varying levels of these noise floors for each of us, and it should be accounted for in reviews or evaluations of equipment. And could be reason for trusting only long term reviews, with varying noise floor levels within one's listening room, short term listening could have taken place during time of best or worse case room noise floor.

But mostly what bothers me is, here all this effort and money spent on equipment in attempt to lower noise floor, and so much of that lost by relatively ridiculous levels of steady state and/or ambient noise. Makes one think about getting closed back headphones, or moving out to extremely remote area to home with minimal internally generated noise. To think how much better  the very system I presently have would sound in that environment!


sns

Showing 1 response by audioquest4life

@millercarbon, 

"Groove noise is the new noise floor." That is where I am at. Low 20's in DB measured in the room. Lifetime of playing around, career related, and hobby stuff got me to build a dedicated listening room that is quiet. In this hobby, there are unknowns, and there are unknown unknowns, but, we all know when it is noisy when we experience it:) 

Glad that I have not had to deal with any spurious noises, hisses, hum, EMI, RFI lately...only the loudness of the groove noise between musical tracks which I control with my volume setting. I have about 90 tubes in my system too.