I agree, keeping ambient noise levels as low as possible is a great benefit and helps one enjoy the music more! I replaced our homes central air system in large part because the air handler was too close to my listening area and created a constant low level racket. Refrigerators humming away in modern homes with an open floor plan are another big noise offender too. Double pane windows can help reduce the transfer of outside noise as well I've found.
Learned a valuable lesson about ambient noise
I've been kinda bummed the last few days because my turntable, well my system as a whole I guess, sounded really congested and just not as wonderful as it's been sounding lately. I figured it started July 3 when I was playing around with a possible new belt on my Amazon turntable. It didn't sound great. Then the old one didn't sound great and I've been trying to figure out what was wrong for half a week... what I had messed up. Turned things on late afternoon today and was still not happy. Now, four hours later, 9pm, everything is great again.... and all that's changed, I suddenly noticed, is that all the 4th of July holiday traffic and drunken people and parties and just general noise is gone. I live in a beach area and I just didn't remember how much noise there could be until it was gone!