Quietest amplifier you have ever owned.

The key to quietness at the speakers is amplify the signal as much as possible, without distorting it of course, before the power amp. Therefore the amp increases the gain less for the same speaker output and therefore is not amplifying the noise that is being introduced to it by the upstream equipment. Obviously you need input attenuators on the amp to be able to accomplish this. Some will say that the attentuators will affect the sound, even if the attentuators are part of the amplifier design.
Most power amps are quiet enough if they are matched correctly i.e. proper impedence loading and in put sensitivity matching. The term quietest amp is irrelevant and meaningless - what you want is low system noise as perceived at the close to the listening station.
I am with Pbb, if you want quiet, go to the mountains and don't turn on your sound system!

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
>

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.