Vinyl's Noise Floor

There are two "noise floors." There is surface noise floor, the clicks and pops on a lp, and there is the noise floor that one can hear through to the "quietest of sounds", as Viridan points out.

Referring to the latter, digital (redbook cds) has a higher noise floor because digital does not deal with information beyond 20khz or below 20hz. Analog has a lower "noise floor" because it is able to reproduce a greater range of information- regardless of whether we can hear (through the surace noise) or sense it. And therefore, analog has the potential to sound more complete.

In the best possible analog setup with top quality lps, the surface noise should be a minor concern. Issues of cost, convenience and availability of music should be addressed before spending a lot of money. In all likelihood, a $2000 cd player will sound better than a similarly priced turntable setup (tt,cart, and phono amp) and, of course, will have less surface noise.

This certainly doesn't need to be the usual, unfortunate, LP vs. CD dragout. Most of us can agree that both sources can deliver a high degree of enjoyment.

Just to address a couple of the technical points raised above -

- it is in fact possible to detect signals under the noise floor of an analog source; this has to do with the signal being decorrelated from the noise. Note that with dither (see below), it is equally possible to do this with digital.

Dither is not a pallative, but rather an integral part of the digital recording process.

There are factors in vinyl reproduction which do limit the noise floor, surface roughness of the LP for one. This is why you'll never find a setup delivering greater than, say, in the mid-70s dB signal-to-noise.

Oh, and Sayas - please stop with the "people who prefer digital are lazy/can't hear/don't give a damn/cheap/etc." refrain. It just isn't universally true, and insulting to imply that it is.

really funny! who the hell on earth claims that no noise floor render playback more musical and more truthful to what had been recorded. If this is the case, CD has long been a standard since its introduction way back in the early 80's. There were a lot of problems in CD playback;jittering is just one example, and until not long ago,with a better understanding and advancement in the technology, it becoming more listenable. I, in order to compare cost set up for CD vs LP playback, decided to invest huge sum of money in the state of art Burmester 969/970 combo. I am convinced, in my system with what I heard, I could use very much lesser money for TT/tonearm/cartridge combo to attain similar musicality, and in many areas better performance as compare to Burmester. I am not here to criticise which is a better playback system. Most importantly, I enjoy different software collection in both LP and CD playback.

Just a couple of experiences I've had for you guys to ponder. In my room when I'm doing serious listening the peaks measure 90-93 db. That's where I like to listen. At that volume when I lift the tonearm I first sense the small amount of tube noise that is present. Note that to really hear it I must place my head pretty close to the speaker. It annoys me. Since my dedicated music room is open to the rest of the house through a six foot opening there is ambient noise that masks the tube noise and the surface noise, in plane or out of plane, to some extent. When a number of my audiophile group friends are here and in the sweet spot in control of the volume they almost always listen at a lesser volume, around 85 db. The tube noise and surface noise is imperceptible at this level making me wish that I was satisfied listening alone at this volume setting.

Upon visiting with a friend and listening to his SOTA analog rig with software ranging from very nice generic pressings to the best audiophile pressings AND the uncleaned used record just bought that day the background was so dead silent that I doubt anyone could tell blindfolded between tracks if we were listening to digital or analog. I'm not exaggerating here at all. Sure, there were a few occassions during several days when you could acutally hear a defect but it was exceptionally rare. We also were not generally listening at the volume levels I listen to at home in solitude. This experience was in Dallas at the home of Albert Porter. I'm so glad that I was able to go and experience this. Understand, Albert has about as impressive a collection of viny as I've ever seen and he has been most anal in his approach to system setup, record condition and cleaning. But, once the listening starts he's not anal at all. He's not one to let an uncleaned LP go unplayed if it adds to the enjoyment of the moment.

I respect today's digital players and a lot of the software offerings and I'm glad that many are totally satisfied with it. Sometimes I'm even glad that's the case since it leaves much more software for the rest of us to buy at favorable prices. I embrace buying whatever software is the best be it analog or digital. That's the best of both worlds and I'm really envious of those audiophiles with deep enough pockets that can afford SOTA players of both kinds.

As a follow up on my first paragraph here I just this week had doors installed to isolate the rest of the home from the music room. Big difference for sure with the ambient noise level. Today I'll be installing dedicated circuits for the system. Hopefully these changes will make vinyl surface noise THE issue with my listening. Maybe I'll find happiness with an 85 db level which I think will happen. I'll report my findings.

Enjoy it all my friends!

Software? I recently purchased a boatload of Columbia Miles Davis reissues. They sound fantastic. Quiet. Same for the boatload of Herbie Hancock reissues. Same for most of the indie/alternative rock I buy.

Regardless, the sound of vinyl is more important than the noise anyways so I'm biased here. The openness and soundstaging from a decent setup is just such a revelation.