Quietest amplifier you have ever owned.

Drubin: Pbb was basically commenting that most of us are wasting our time seeking out components that both measure and perform better sonically. He basically stated that we are worried about subjects and situations that will never come into play. That is because he is of the opinion that most gear is "plenty good enough" once it reaches a specific level, hence his typical stone throwing signature of "from the mid-fi trenches". While some of his observations do apply to various conversations, i think that the majority of his comments would blend in more with the Audio Review crowd better than what they do here. Sean
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As a little note to the -120dB posts, it all depends on how it was calculated. Generally this figure is the difference between output and noise floor. However, at what output? And at what heighth of noise floor? Many ambiguous variables involved and few state the conditions. -120dB is very realizable. Pass quotes -145dB for some of his amps at peak power - quite impressive. Personally, I let me ears to the calculating. Arthur

Sean, as I read his post, his point was only to poke fun at the notion of evaluating a system without music playing. I didn't see any references to measurements or specs or any of the things you objected to. Maybe I missed it.

my quietest amp is the Ayre V3 - fully balanced design I suspect is the reason why it's so dead quiet. Even driving horns, there is absolutely *no* idle noise with an ear nailed directly to the cabinet front.

Drubin: My comments to Pbb are not based on his input to this thread alone, but to his continual attack against those that seek a higher level of reproduction to that of what he personally feels to be necessary. He constantly tries to remind us just how stupid we are for going to the extremes that some of us do. After subtly attacking someone, he typically tries to "soften" his belittlement of their comments / efforts by saying something like "responding from the mid-fi trenches".

Here's a question to the rest of the participants on this thread:

How do you judge whether or not your system or a component has a high noise floor ?

Personally, i select an unused input on the preamp and crank the gain wide open. If i can hear any form of noise or hiss with my ear next to the speaker, it is noisier than what i want to hear : )

Obviously, someone with very high efficiency speakers and / or those with a very bright frequency response may hear more hiss / noise than someone running very low efficiency speakers or speakers with a rolled off treble response. If checking a source, you obviously would select that source with no signal being sent to the preamp and advance the gain. Obviously, one should NOT do this with a tuner and the muting turned off : ) Sean
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