Background noise.

Ambient noise is a number one priority with me. I’ve been in some very nicely constructed radio station studios, and have been amazed at how quiet, quiet can be. There’s a radio station studio that I sometimes still step foot into, and I’m always completely blown away by how quiet it is (without question, it is the quietest place I know of on this earth). I was not involved with construction of it, but I know they went to great lengths to soundproof it - you can’t even hear the air conditioning in action. If I somehow step into a very quiet public space (like maybe a museum of some sort), my ears and brain immediately recognize this, and bask in all of its unintended glory. Many of us just don’t realize, on a daily basis, how we’re constantly bombarded with noise.

I too try and strive for quiet home listening environments, and even though I’m most times able to achieve that (thankfully most times my neighborhood is quiet too), I still prefer my headphones when critically listening. I even go a step further, and darken my listening environments. Many times I will also close my eyes when listening, and try and tune everything out, except the music I’m listening to. It’s not always easy creating a quiet home listening environment, but with all of the great sound systems many have assembled on this site, attaining an ultra-quiet listening environment should *also* be a top priority.

I find bad rooms and background noise don’t necessarily detract from the music but they add to the stress. You don’t realize you are working harder to listen until it’s gone.

Yes!  And that n-th degree of blacker black that reviewers talk about as attributable to expensive components, doesn't matter that much if you have any significant degree of ambient noise.

@twoleftears 

Yes!  And that n-th degree of blacker black that reviewers talk about as attributable to expensive components, doesn't matter that much if you have any significant degree of ambient noise.

You got it! 

@twoleftears 

+1

I just remeasured the background… 25db with iPhone. It is Thursday mid morning… so, under ideal late night conditions it probably goes down a bit more, low 20’s. I then flipped on the air cleaner. My phone showed 27db… but… of course it jumps to high 30s - 40s if I take a breath. I think my conclusion is the iPhone Microphone just isn’t that sensitive in this range.

To me carefully listening, with and without the air cleaner sounds more like a 10db change (guess). I have a better SPL meter somewhere and a high quality microphone I bought for this purpose. I’ll pull them out.

BTW, three walls of my audio room (front and sides) are underground and as such help significant lower the noise floor. The distance from the speaker wall to rear wall is over 40 feet… so rear reflections are minimal.

I have always been cognizant of background noise. But, I am really surprised at the amount of special information, dynamics, and detail lost by a seemingly really small increase background noise.

Obviously, there are two things going on… your system background and ambient room background. These factors and their interplay have to be really important in results reported by lots of folks about there equipment performance.