Since you’re mentioning USB cards I assume you’re not wondering about vinyl playback. Unless you have old or very poorly designed components the speakers will measure the highest in most systems. DACs should be the lowest, preamps and amps or integrated next.
As long as your system measurements are below approximately- 110 dB don’t worry about it. Cables, interconnects etc.. don’t add or subtract enough to matter unless they were designed as tone controls.
Turn your system on crank it a bit if you don’t hear any hiss that’s a good start. Put on some music with vocals and acoustic instruments, turn it up as loud as you usually play then a little more if the guitar sounds like a digeredo and vocals a bit like they sucked helium you have some noise, if not don’t worry about it.
If you don’t have vinyl or tape in the chain, only CD or streaming you should never hear any background hum or hiss, I can turn my volume all the way up with nothing playing and hear a pin drop it’s that quiet. I would blow out my eardrums before I can hear any level noise in even poorly recorded music and I use inexpensive interconnects and Canare 4s11 speaker wire. I don’t have dedicated circuits or cable risers, magic mats or goop pasted all over everything. None of that crap helps at all just have properly designed equipment that measures good and wires of proper guage.
Oh and speakers that measure as flat as possible from 20hz to 20khz, speakers matter the most since they should measure the worse unless you’re into vinyl or tape then you’ll get hiss, flutter,rumble.
As long as your system measurements are below approximately- 110 dB don’t worry about it. Cables, interconnects etc.. don’t add or subtract enough to matter unless they were designed as tone controls.
Turn your system on crank it a bit if you don’t hear any hiss that’s a good start. Put on some music with vocals and acoustic instruments, turn it up as loud as you usually play then a little more if the guitar sounds like a digeredo and vocals a bit like they sucked helium you have some noise, if not don’t worry about it.
If you don’t have vinyl or tape in the chain, only CD or streaming you should never hear any background hum or hiss, I can turn my volume all the way up with nothing playing and hear a pin drop it’s that quiet. I would blow out my eardrums before I can hear any level noise in even poorly recorded music and I use inexpensive interconnects and Canare 4s11 speaker wire. I don’t have dedicated circuits or cable risers, magic mats or goop pasted all over everything. None of that crap helps at all just have properly designed equipment that measures good and wires of proper guage.
Oh and speakers that measure as flat as possible from 20hz to 20khz, speakers matter the most since they should measure the worse unless you’re into vinyl or tape then you’ll get hiss, flutter,rumble.