dead quiet


I read this a lot that one's system is dead quiet..Is this at all possible when playing phono? what does it really mean?
ditto

Showing 6 responses by eldartford

As Atmasphere states, hum is almost always due to wiring/grounding faults. If the preamp hums without any cartridge input it is faulty...often power supply capacitors. Tube preamps that used ac filament excitation sometimes hummed, but that's why we use dc today.

Even relatively inexpensive solid state preamps can be very quiet. "Dead" is subjective. In my experience tube preamps exhibit some hiss, but this is an inherent characteristic of a tube and not under total control of the designer.

But the bottom line is that hiss and hum is almost always below the level of LP surface noise, and even further below even quiet sections of the recording. If you worry about noise that is audible only with your ear against the speaker you are exhibiting irrational audiophile paranoia.
Stringreen....Inaudible signal affects the music signal?? Not likely. But if this is true it is an argument for LOW efficiency speakers, where the inaudible signal is more dB down from the music.

If a very weak 60 Hz signal affects the rest of the spectrum what happens when the music has a strong 60 Hz tone??

Another case of IAP :-)
Stringreen...You are correct about the speaker efficiency not being a factor IF you make the test with the volume turned up to equal levels with the two kinds of speakers. I was wrong, (but was led astray by Atmasphere).

But you are wrong to think that a tiny inaudible 60 Hz signal could adversely affect the music signal. IAP.
Albertporter...It's hard to find any combination of letters which is not already an acronym for something. Do you have a better suggestion for when we go over the top?
Stringreen...So, when the tuba plays 60 Hz, the violin is messed up. Not in my system. Maybe in yours.
Stringreen...OK. OK...but if your hum is loud as a tuba your system needs repair :-)