Noise floors
Groove noise is the new noise floor.@millercarbon Hmmmm, yeah not really, the loudest thing is my air con, hoping it’s the loudest thing we hear between tracks on my system when I get to Washington *smirk*. Yeah, I know, it’s what you don’t know you don’t know that’ll have that smirk wiped off your face Aussie. Digital vs Analog (I do know I may very well be in trouble) Lenehan vs Tekton (it will be fun) Oh, and I have already got WAF for vinyl, if it comes to that, from the Belarusian. |
Excellent post! Indeed, I found that ambient noise is a terrible problem in the US. We are so used to it we don't even notice. I grew up in quieter areas and when I moved into metro Honolulu, for first five years I thought I was going crazy because I had to adapt to the high ambient noise level of the city. (And the Makiki area where I lived at that time is pretty quiet by US metro standards!)I moved out from the big city, and into a very quiet neighborhood. The daytime noise level is still quite above that of average Europe, for example - mainly because of the drywall construction here, and practically zero concern of builders to soundproof the houses. (Versus the brick or stone constructions in Europe that are excellent sound barriers - I could easily hear a mosquito across the living room at night!) Thus, my first move was to install additional sound proofing, the triple system they use in professional theatres, cutting down 65+dB from outside noises. Big job, but well worth it! (Also, I can blast music at ANY time I want and neighbors do not hear it.) That still leaves the noise of the appliances, etc, clock ticking on the wall. The whisper quiet ticking is not noticeable during daytime, but in the AM hours it becomes a nagging distraction. During daytime the noise floor is in the 20s, so our talking level is in the 30s (no need to shout at the end of the day) and in the evenings it must be in the 10dB or so. There is a gigantic difference between the two, how the system sounds. I make all my amps dead quiet even on 100dB speakers, with ears to the driver cone, so get the best of both aspects. Even with that, there is a MAJOR difference when ambient noise is 20dB VS 10dB. with 20dB noise the music seems to collapse, the effect is so great! I highly recommend for everyone to treat ambient noise as a primary concern to fix. |
I tend to run lower volume on my stereo so less indoor ambient noise equates to higher resolution. That’s what I paid for! I prefer to not have to ‘crank the knob’ to overcome noisy appliances, HVAC, ticking clocks or other noise makers. Outside noise I can’t control but thankfully my neighborhood is mostly quiet. Not that I’m opposed to ‘cranking the knob’, mind you. But just when I feel like it, like maybe when I’m playing Foghat—Fool For The City. :-) Nice post OP, thanks. |
There is a constant roar outside now- I just pretend it's the sound of waves crashing on an imaginary beach. We also get ambulance and police sirens at least 3 times a day and aircraft from the local aerodrome and passenger jets higher up. Give me the gentle pootle of a Morris Minor over the ugly road roar of a Tesla (or worse those huge SUVs) any day. My MGB is over 50 years old, does almost 40mpg on unleaded, will happily cruise on the motorway in overdrive and makes a lovely (musical?) gentle engine noise on standard pipes (ironically would probably not make modern type approval though) and hardly any tyre roar although the higher and higher ethanol content in fuel will probably kill it. I know the emissions are never going to be saintly but that's why God invented the pushbike. I have access to a modern Golf diesel (2yrs old) that is too noisy to drive with the windows down (and it tells me off with an 'eco tip'), chews through tyres and still rarely does better than 45mpg They took away the electric milk floats with their gentle whine and rattle of the bottles, forklifts that would charge overnight and the posties' pushbikes and now claim we're trying to be more 'eco' with our rampant consumerism. |
When the stereo is on at a decent volume, as MC says, the ambient noise is not audible unless it is something very loud, like HVAC and maybe an old running dishwasher. I have a fish tank whose filter you can hear if you listen, but it is not audible/noticeable when the stereo is playing. If your windows are open and horns are honking and you want to enjoy the stereo maximally, shut them. |
"Hear's" an experiment........ Sit in your sweet spot, Put on your favorite "soundstage" music and, While listening CUP your ears with your hands. I did this the other day and I have NO idea why lol. But I did it anyway to amazement of my ears and what it did to the soundstage, ambient noise, and emersion. So I tried making something that I could wear over my ears. I cut out paper cups that would sit around my ears... didn't work so well because the thinness was like nothing was there. Got online and found clear rubber cups already made for "enhance listening" and bought them. There is slight improvement but not the same as cupping with hands. So I'd like to see if anyone has any ideas because this seemed to block out ambient sound at the same time as enhancing, by a noticeable margin, the emersion and soundstage. I would also like to preempt responses suggesting, yes indeed, I am an idiot. That is already a given. |
I've tried something similar, a high back chair, higher than my ears. My listening room at end of house, front wall at outside wall, so at listening position virtually all house generated noise behind listening position. The high back chair masked those noises to some extent, but also eliminated nearly all sound reflections from behind listening position, destroys sense of immersion in sound field, no way! Here in order of preference would be my favorite listening room locations. Least favorite is room with walls on outside of house, worst because uncontrolled outdoor generated noise. I'd rather have greater issue be much better controlled interior generated noise. Least outside walls is best. I have three exterior walls for my listening room, not good. Next would be interior room in house, more insulated from uncontrolled outdoor noise, perhaps the least from the more controlled interior noise. The best possible listening room would be in basement of house, by far the best insulated from the uncontrolled outdoor noise, indoor would be variable depending on placement of HVAC, plumbing systems. In this room all walls double layers of dry wall, insulation material between layers, ceiling maximally treated to sound proof from home generated noise. cement slab covered in acoustic friendly materials, HVAC and plumbing systems (if located in basement) in sound proofed room. |
Ambient noise pollution (ie, a too-high noise floor in one’s environment) is all too real. I am currently experiencing this more vividly in the bedroom than listening room: 1 - BR is relatively quiet in general (house on 2 acres in suburban/rural area). 2 - There is a Bose table radio in the room. I can play it at low volume while reading before bedtime. Easy to hear and appreciate it. 3 - Air conditioning in the BR used to be a window AC unit (loud as hell)--but now it’s a "split system" where the compressor is outside & near-impossible hear inside; and the unit on the wall is a very quiet air handler that blows air over coils containing chilled coolant & into the room. It works like a charm w/far less noise than any window AC. Easy to forget the split's even on...that sound is soft, soothing white noise. 4 - Yet when the split is on I cannot listen to that radio w/o turning up the volume significantly. I haven’t measured decibels, but the split is not simply adding environmental noise (which it is); it’s also adding environment white noise capable of "masking" other low-volume sounds. I could get exactly the same effect with a box fan set to "low" -- not even close to loud, but able to mask all other low volume sounds. |
Ambient noise floor in my system you have to look forward to Rick.Note to self - purchase matching bullet proof vests for wife and myself when entering Seattle area. Two weeks until my big road trip! @desktopguy - yeah if I build a house, it'll have a split system in the listening room, or acousitflex duct weaving it's way into the room. |
Take the 405 bypass. Stop at Wade's on the way. https://maps.apple.com/place?address=13570%20Bel-Red%20Rd%2C%20Bellevue%2C%20WA%2098005%2C%20United%... |
You don't get it. The problem isn't when music is at 85db, its during the quiet passages, music may be at only 50, 60db, perhaps lower. Unless all you listen to is highly compressed music at high volumes, bring on the fireworks, furnace sounds, loud cars, what have you. Oh, and then I'll get drunk and not notice a thing. Sorry, I listen to highly dynamic recordings, kind of like real live music, for that matter,speach. Man, if you don't get the difference between music playing at 85db with ambient sound level 30db and the quiet passage at 50-60db, perhaps lower and ambient sound level of 30db I will never get through to you. Would you seriously not think that 20db, perhaps even lower difference between ambient and music volume would not impinge on hearing even lower level information contained within that overall global music volume. There may even be information you miss altogether if that info is reproduced by your system at lets say 25db and your room or ambient sound level is 30db. Perhaps some of you don't get it, at any volume setting volume level of music, say 85db there are lower level signals, could be any amount of db less than that 85db. This is commonly referred to as low level information, also related to micro dynamics. Can you imagine if the entire range of music presented was all blaring out a exactly the same db, we'd have no such thing as micro dynamics or even music for that matter, it'd be noise like I doubt ever heard in real life, even single notes have overtones, differing harmonics, not all those overtones are one single level db. And then we have all the variables of recording chain and playback on our systems. As previously mentioned recorded dynamics highly variable. Our systems also reproduce these recorded dynamics in variable manner, the higher one's system micro dynamic capabilities are will bring these higher to lower db micro dynamic differences into greater relief. The lower one's ambient or room noise level is will also bring greater micro dynamic relief or shading. |
And to make it even more crystal clear, even macro dynamic range is quite variable. Roon provides a dynamic range index with each recording, this is the difference between the loudest and softest volume on any one track or cd/album, this is variable and measureable. This is a macro volume measurement, in other words the TOTAL volume of all the variable micro dynamic volumes contained within a recording or music, or even any sound for that matter. While one could measure micro dynamic range within the macro dynamic range envelope, far too complex, in any micro second it could be variable, so much low level information and constantly changing with performer's breath or intensity of touch or force on various instruments. Micro dynamics are what gives sound the quality of life. These slight volume differences or shadings will be masked or diminished to some extent by higher noise floor on system or room. I just don't get it, so much talk about noise floor/SNR with equipment, virtually none about listening room. I often hear talk of listening room being most important component within audio systems, this aspect of room performance is extremely important to that component. The idea of a black background is both a function of system and room. And now I'm tired of being pedantic. |
Hilarious, I did mention my preferred listening rooms, don't recall anechoic chamber being one of them. I guess you take plenty of meds, altered mind can't detect micro dynamics, probably listen to all highly compressed recordings at high volume levels. Real head banger! You should really bang some sense into your head. |
In Brooklyn, anyone can tell you the difference between gun fire and a car backfire. Nobody pays attention to the gun fire. ambient noise? , clubs In south FLA had rock bands on one stage and Disco on the other side, talk about recreating live stage sound if my wife’s fussing in the sink at whatever low DB levels weren’t so distracting I could actually hear the music. Is it my hearing that is no longer selective? and then I hear Jennifer Warner’s for the 800th time testing my speaker placement. Damn, when I was 19 years old and used headphones at 2am everything sounded perfect. no need to involve anybody else. It’s only when I had enough money to get a house my own and a “cave” that these ridiculous levels of perfect emerged |
I guess I am able to focus on the music and filter out all but the loudest most annoying noise, which unfortunately does not include my wife’s inefficient banging plates and glasses loading and unloading the dishwasher and leaving the damn faucet running for most of the loading process. Oh well, 1st world problems…. luckily not much coming from outside in the quiet suburbs except the occasional lawn mower or leafblower which for some reason I dont notice when the stereo is on. I finnitice it when its not on. |
If you have too much ambient noise from sources external to your audio system, and if that bothers you, then you have to fix your room. It is that simple, and you don’t need a huge budget to do it. There’s a perceptual aspect to this. Having lived in NYC for 45 years, I’ve been trained by my environment to simply tune out a lot of stuff. There are fascinating studies that show how selective our brains are at deciding not only what to hear and what not to hear, but how our brains substitute sounds that aren’t really there, because our brain somehow expects them to be there (this phenomena is mostly related to language, but it’s a short distance to see how visual stimuli can trigger a phantom sound in the brain, and so on). But I digress. While in lower Manhattan in NYC, I had a lively room: tin ceiling, brick walls, very large glass windows, hardwood floors. And a fire station around the corner with false alarms daily, and a noisy open air club/bar/restaurant directly across the street. The wife and I moved to a small city in the Hudson Valley 4 years ago. We restored/renovated a 3.5 story brick townhouse so that it very nearly attains passive house performance standards. My home studio/office/and audio room is in the attic. My architect is a friend and classmate from our Cooper Union years. He has a masters from Harvard where he also studied acoustic engineering. To get the energy performance we aspired to, we used rockwool to insulate the walls (6”) and ceiling (17.5”), and restored historic windows with very tight interior storm windows that together equal the performance of triple pane. There is also 8” of rock wool between the joists underneath the floor boards. My architect said “I’ve known you for 40+ years. You’ve had this hobby since you were 14. Yet you’ve never heard your system sound the way it is meant to sound.” He told me to cover the walls and ceiling with fire resistant burlap instead of sheet rock. He said that if I did this, I would get recording studio acoustic performance from the room for the amount of money we were already spending anyway for thermal performance. We would get a semi-anechoic room. And my audio system’s capabilities would finally be fully revealed. Sure enough, when I have guests over for the first time, the first thing that they notice is not my 3,000 book library, nor my 6,000 LP library, but the quality of the sound in the room: “I don’t hear any echo! I don’t hear any sound from outside!” And my perception of the stereo (that’s what we called it in the 60s/70s/80s) system’s performance improved by a whopping 50% mas o menos. The adage is true: your room is 50% of your system, maybe more. Fix your room. As for the ambient sounds coming from your stereo: I once had to report to an executive creative director who must have felt that his job description was to go into a panic-driven tirade at any misstep. He would come yellin and screamin at me at the slightest thing. I’d wait for a minute or two for him to blow it out of his system and then I would say “The time you spent acting hysterical is time not spent addressing whatever problem that you are concerned about”. Similarly, noise floors being elevated by poor cable routing, failure to isolate mass-conducted vibration etc you all know the score here, is energy going into distortion instead of into the accurate reproduction of the source signal. Identify the issues and correct them. Best - ML theaudioatticvinylsundays.com |
Thanks unrecievedogma, you get it. Have you measured your typical ambient noise floor? This article mentions typical recording studio ambient noise levels are mid 20db and explains the importance of ambient noise floors. https://mojodigitalmusic.com/-13.0.8.13.3-t1--9.53.44--61.79--XVONuIZx=Z9IcFWdHahOo7-/blog/our-blog-... |
SNS, thank you for that link. Very interesting, perhaps a bit more detail than I need but very cool to read. I was being a little coy in my comment above. In my view, the room isn’t half of the audio system, it’s a third. The other third is our brain itself, and what it brings to the listening experience. Listen to Poppy Crum’s (chief scientist at Dolby Lans) presentation here. https://youtu.be/BYTlN6wjcvQ more later. Best - ML theaudioatticvinylsundays.com |
A lot there, having been a sociology major in school, I've been long aware of bias, misperception, etc. And so I agree our brains should be considered as a component of our audio systems, taken together with listening room easily should get as much or more attention as the equipment itself. Unfortunately, brains and rooms can't be rotated in and out of our systems as the equipment is. Many listening rooms require compromises for all sorts of reasons, and minds are generally not easily changed. The quest for obtaining that perfect mix of equipment is what occupies the mind, the room and training of mind not so much. The goal of an audio system imo, is to both maximize resolution and minimize the need to ignore the bad things, a point where analytical listening melds into musical enjoyment, one moves past the point of analyzing the sound long term. The ambient noise level of my listening room during daytime is by far the weakest link in my system at this point Anything above a constant 30db or so is bothersome for me, at mid 20's I'm content. Still, I'd like to hear my system at something less than mid 20's, wonder how much more low level info I may be missing. One more thing to add, at late night listening I'm generally 80-85db peak listening, I can always turn up volume to hear more low level info, but 80-85db is my comfort zone for a lot of music. |
Well, what’s your goal? 15 db? 10? 5? 0? There is a point of “silence” at which the mind is not designed to adapt. The mind needs some noise simply so that it can keep us balanced while standing up. The mind needs some noise because it is programmed to listen. Absent all ambience, it will listen to the sound of our own body: heartbeat, breathing, even the sound of the blood pulsing through your ears. Absent that sound, it will create its own: that’s what tinnitus is. A lab in Minnesota is so quiet that the longest anyone could stand being in it was about 45 minutes or so before they would want to run out screaming. My room is around mid to high 20s db. I think that is practical, and good enough, because frankly, once the LP starts playing, the mind takes care of the problem: it “diminishes” the ambience and makes it recede to imperceptibility. I think that Millercarbon was alluding to this in his first comment: beyond a certain point, what’s the point? https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/orfield-labs-quiet-chamber |
My practical goal for the ambient noise floor has been met. Mid 20db has been totally satisfying. My intention for anything lower is theoretical. And I'd agree one wouldn't want a totally dead room, some ambience and/or noise is our natural environment. My only intention for OP was for people to pay attention to minimizing ambient noise levels in listening rooms. Lots of talk about room treatments, which is vitally important, ambient noise part of equation. |
Environmental noise is a topic that very rarely gets discussed. Reminds me of those who have impaired hearing to start with. Not much discussion there either. Most all of my life, I have been affected more than most anyone that I know by ambient or environmental noise. The sound of a newspaper folding even was teeth gritting for me at one time in my life. When I went to a concert I prayed that the mechanical systems were quiet enough along with the audience. Once experience that was quite unusual was having to work at a home site that was VERY unusual. Some guy bought the property once owned by the local power company. To protect their equipment, a 12 foot high brick wall surrounded most of the property. There was a large steel door for access. This door was so large and heavy, there was a 'little door' cut into it. Ok, so you went from city noise to a drastically quiet environment when shutting the door. Not that I didn't realize just how noisy the city was, but the difference was really really cool. It would take that to demonstrate to the average individual what is being discussed here! |
4krowme, environmental noise, also often called noise pollution. Ambient or environmental noise levels have risen over time, nearly imperceptible to most of us as such a gradual process. The drone of heavy traffic in urban or suburban area would be of great salience to rural resident, unnoticeable to the urban/suburban resident. Ignorant mind is most useful for humans. Speaking of live concerts I recall a time when audiences were much quieter than contemporary audiences. Screaming during quiet passages drives me nuts, I came to hear the performer, the performer is NOT the audience. The ignorant mind would help me here. |
