I’m beginning to believe that another reason that components I own and enjoy which others claim to sound dark, veiled, imprecise, or short on detail, and which I find sound opposite those descriptions, has to do with the extremely low noise floor I enjoy in my system. Both my Nottingham turntable and my Sonus Faber Olympica III speakers have often been described by contributors on A-gon forums in terms I’ve listed above. Consider upfront components which are part of my system: a First Sound PD III linestage with dual mono construction, S upgrade, dual power supplies and NOS GE 5670 triodes; a Cary Audio PH-302 mk II phono stage with 4 NOS 1950’s RCA 6SL7’s and external power supply I had Cary build, a Core Power Technologies EquiCore 1800 power conditioner, plus a Pass X250.8, and I believe you have the makings for a very quiet, low noise floor system. First Sound’s Mr. Emmanual Go makes frequent reference to lowering the noise floor when discussing his products and upgrade paths; low noise floor is one of his primary objectives. My interpretation? Lower the noise floor and more music is presented. The music doesn’t ’compete’ with noise when signal meets speakers. At the loudness levels I listen to, (rarely an ’eleven’, sometimes just loud enough to clear the room, but usually just loud enough to allow for slightly elevated conversation in a fairly big room), now that I think of it, I’m not aware of noise in between cuts on albums. There’s lead-in noise when initially cueing albums, but after cut 1, I just don’t hear anything but music, and if there is surface noise, it is so quiet it draws no attention to itself. I’m certain this is not a new topic and much has been written about it, just thought I’d mention it given the comments re: Nottingham turntables’ sonic signatures.
