2. tech-talk
  3. 1344463138

Blackness - how quiet does it need to be?

In almost all gear of any substantial value the concept of the blackness, quietness or low noise floor comes up. A reviewer might say that the noise floor was noticably lower when reviewing a particular piece compared to another. Now I get that low noise translates roughly to being able to hear more music and nuanced detail. Thing is, when I turn on my system and no music is going through it, I can't hear anything, unless I put my ear right up to the speaker and the AC isn't running and the fan isn't on, etc. And with music on the only thing I hear is any recorded hiss that might be from the recording. So what I dont get is when they say a piece of equipment sounds quieter, do they mean somehow that the hiss on the recording is lower? I cant see how that would be possible, or are they talking about the hiss of the equipment without muisc? In which case I cant hear it at all when sitting down on my couch. I don't have the world best gear, so I'm thinking are they overplaying the "quiet" card.
last_lemming

Showing 3 responses by last_lemming

last_lemming OP
407 posts
 
I'm trying to understand the concept of the CDP contributing to noise while playing vs. when not. How would one hear this noise while the CDP is playing? In my case it's a transport to DAC. What I do know, is that on high quality hi'er res material like 96k/24 bit, on quiet passages, the hiss level hardly goes up, even on more than average listen levels. In other words I can only hear the hiss if Im very near the speakers, but certainly not when sitting. Now this only holds true for well recorded sources. Of couse I have hi res recordings that have hiss in the recording like my Miles Davis, Kind of Blue that I can hear from my couch, but this is not the same thing that Kijanki is speaking of.

I don't quite understand what IMD is, in layman terms. So Im off to look that up.
last_lemming OP
407 posts
 
Thank you Kijanki. I do believe I get the gist in what you are saying. Since there can only be jitter when a musical signal is present, then noise can't be heard as a "hiss" per say, but as distortion on some level in the music reproduction.
last_lemming OP
407 posts
 
"I knew that some recordings have a lot of processing but I never knew that lots of recordings have white noise pumped into them."

The hiss I'm talking about is only on a few select cd recordings of older music. Like my Miles Davis, Kind of Blue HDCD. Most music sounds pretty quiet.
More to discover