Black backgrounds and such

I have to say I always had the same question. It's hard to describe. Once you hear it you'll know. The first time I heard a blacker background is when I added a black box to my Octave V70se integrated. It was like clearer vocals and instruments. The next time was when I went from Dynaudio C1 speakers to Raidho D1's. Even more clarity. A side observation was when the music was playing loud I found myself being able to talk and not raise my voice when having a conversation.

I heard it when i upgraded my turntable  - from a Kuzma Reference/Triplanar to the bigger, much heavier Kuzma XL with Airline (lateral tracking) arm. There was less a sense of a turntable spinning-- what i'd call a 'halo' around the sound. Not exactly blacker blacks, but when some source of noise/distortion is suddenly absent, you realize it was there. 

I've always likened it to those Elvis painting on velvet. In the audio sphere
I've used the analogy often for what I hear with a well designed tube amp versus a well designed transistor amp. The tube unit will get notes coming out of a dead quiet. The transistor unit will have something busy in the background. It's like there is some Brownian movement or some quantum creation and dissolution at the molecular level that, in quiet passages, you can feel present. Now I know Brownian movement or quantum activity are on any technical level factually misleading and incorrect, still, there's something happening that does not go away there.


With a black backdrop it goes Midnight in the Graveyard quiet. Elvis on a silk background is not like Elvis on a velvet surface. It's nothing if you haven't noticed it. If you don't zone in on it, it's nothing. Once it becomes a possibility in your awareness it becomes imperative. I can't live with a busy background. In effect, listening for blackness is listening for nothing. Is it an obsession to listen for nothing?

Might be, very well might be, but what is this whole hobby but an obsession?

Thanks for all the responses. So does a small amount of barely audible hiss count against the black background?

im still in search for some glossary that will normalize terms used in reviews. It all reads very poetically but hard to gauge whether certain things are meaningful. 

Blackness is a very good description. Just like on your TV. If you can output true black or improve black level then some low level subtleties will be visible.

It isnt the same as hiss. Hiss can be ok - provided it is just random noise.

I think of blackness as tonal. There are no spurious tones. No IMD. No added timbre from the equipment. We hear spurious tones and they are a distraction that make subtle details harder to hear.

Common forms are jitter, IMD, DAC non-linearities, speaker resonances,speaker driver resonances, power supply hum, and of course stuff in your room that vibrates at characteristic tones - gyprock, furniture, floors,furnace/AC.