Noise floors


I'd like to address an issue that every single audiophile experiences, that being inherent/ambient steady state noise floors. Here we spend so much effort and money on our equipment in order to lower noise floor and increase resolution, transparency, only to lose some percentage of it on relatively high ambient noise floors. By this I mean the noise generated internally by home, hvac systems and so much more, add to that external, outside the home generated noise. Measuring over many years, over large variables, lowest readings of mid 20db to highest mid 50db in my dedicated listening room, these are steady state readings, any particular system in house may activate and or outdoor generated noises, which are even more variable, may kick in raising if from here.

And so, while we can address both these internal and external generated noise floors to some extent, we can't rid ourselves entirely of them. I presume there are widely varying levels of these noise floors for each of us, and it should be accounted for in reviews or evaluations of equipment. And could be reason for trusting only long term reviews, with varying noise floor levels within one's listening room, short term listening could have taken place during time of best or worse case room noise floor.

But mostly what bothers me is, here all this effort and money spent on equipment in attempt to lower noise floor, and so much of that lost by relatively ridiculous levels of steady state and/or ambient noise. Makes one think about getting closed back headphones, or moving out to extremely remote area to home with minimal internally generated noise. To think how much better  the very system I presently have would sound in that environment!


sns
@sns - yes a quiet room really helps. I am fortunate that my listening room is entirely bordered by other rooms before external walls.

The ducted air con is the noise floor in my listening room.

@millercarbon - I thought you live in or near Seattle, not Portland?
In Brooklyn, anyone can tell you the difference between gun fire and a car backfire. Nobody pays attention to the gun fire.
ambient noise? , clubs In south FLA had rock bands on one stage and Disco on the other side, talk about recreating live stage sound
if my wife’s fussing in the sink at whatever low DB levels weren’t so distracting I could actually hear the music. 
Is it my hearing that is no longer selective?
and then I hear Jennifer Warner’s for the 800th time testing my speaker placement. 
Damn, when I was 19 years old and used headphones at 2am everything sounded perfect.
no need to involve anybody else.
 It’s only when I had enough money to get a house my own and a  “cave” that these ridiculous levels of perfect emerged
I guess I am able to focus on the music and filter out all but the loudest most annoying noise, which unfortunately does not include my wife’s inefficient banging plates and glasses loading and unloading the dishwasher and leaving the damn faucet running for most of the loading process. Oh well, 1st world problems….

luckily not much coming from outside in the quiet suburbs except the occasional lawn mower or leafblower which for some reason I dont notice when the stereo is on. I finnitice it when its not on.
Artemis: the change you fear is coming and it is either inevitable or we will get to enjoy the demise of the homo sapien species.