How much noise floor is too much? (for you)

[sqlsavior]

It depends on the noise. For example, random surface noise on vinyl is fairly listenable for me - I have lots of practice tuning it out, whereas a deep scratch making a regular sound is more irritating. We have an open floor plan, and if my wife has her TV on when she isn't wearing her hearing aids, my music has to be louder than I prefer, so I usually wait, and end up listening less.

For awhile, I listened late at night, sometimes with the volume so low I had to hold my breath to hear the quiet parts. Fortunately I'm in a quiet neighborhood (~28 dBA at night) and the 'stats are dynamic at low volumes, and 'sing' w/o cranking.

I have a higher tolerance than I should for hum (but only on phono ;-)

 

[peterp1]

A different kind of noise floor -- In my garage system (1972 Rotel RX-400, Allison Six speakers), I often listen to our local FM jazz station. It's a weak station, so I have my choice between FM with static via the Rotel tuner, or the same station streamed via the TuneIn radio app to a Chromecast audio device connected to the Rotel Aux input.

The streamed station is pristine, background noise-wise, but the fidelity of streamed radio sucks big time (I think it's 64kbps). It doesn't sound that bad if you don't compare it side-by-side with analog FM, but when you do (I do it all the time), true FM sounds way, way better. I listen to the noisy FM station 9 out of 10 times, despite there regularly being a non-trivial amount of static. Even when the FM signal degrades to mono, it still sounds better than the same station streamed. Every once in a while the FM signal is so bad I'll stream the station, but otherwise it's staticy jazz for me.

In this case, high fidelity is more important to me than a fairly massive noise floor.

 

[izeek11]

What's up with that anyway? My wife also listens to the TV cranked up between 35-40. The volume only goes to 50 when turned all the way up. I can listen easily between 5-7 on the remote volume control normally. With the AC on I sometimes have to crank it all the way up to 8.

iono, man. drives me nuts. i can hear it through the front door when i walk up to it sometimes.
open the door and kojak jumps at me.

 

[izeek11]

I don't know what the noise floor measurement in my listening area would be but I would classify it as "too high".

I sit right by the inside part of the mini-split A/C so I get noise from that. There is a ceiling fan although that's not bad at all. We have an open floorplan and you can hear the 'fridge running. The main offender is the %#@&^%ing ice maker my wife insists on having running 24/7. It sits on the counter in the kitchen and makes more noise than ice.

get yourself a db app.

 

[tadawson]

iono, man. drives me nuts. i can hear it through the front door when i walk up to it sometimes.
open the door and kojak jumps at me.

I refer to that as "Theatre for the deaf" . . . .

 

[RVT1K]

get yourself a db app.

I have a UMIK-1 and REW, I could easily measure it and probably more accurately than with a phone.

I'm not interested since I can't do much of anything about it except start a go-fund-me page to finance the construction of a dedicated listening room attached to my house.

 

[Lux Man]

I have a UMIK-1 and REW, I could easily measure it and probably more accurately than with a phone.

I'm not interested since I can't do much of anything about it except start a go-fund-me page to finance the construction of a dedicated listening room attached to my house.

Kids come to our house asking for money to go to Europe for band. Why not for a new listening room??? Are you really in Belize? Maybe I could come help build it......with you.

 

[eiraved]

The noise floor has to be pretty loud to interfere with my listening, probably because my tinnitus is pretty bad. Sometimes I'll even hear music playing in a quiet room. They call that tinnitus Musical Ear Syndrome (MES). Other name for it is musical tinnitus/musical hallucination. Thank God the music is good, kind of like a vibraphone/harpsichord type of sound. Good thing I like vibes, Cal Tjader is one of my favorites.

 

[mcgjohn]

the lower the noise floor the better. If a person looks beyond acoustical noise and starts to look at electrical noise, which many times can translate into electrical noise.

Lowering AC noise can usually result in lower audible noise.

 

[RVT1K]

Kids come to our house asking for money to go to Europe for band. Why not for a new listening room??? Are you really in Belize? Maybe I could come help build it......with you.

Are they at least selling something?? People have gotten quite shameless when it comes to begging and "I want it" seems to be the only justification required to deserve something.

Yup, really in Belize. Retired and moved to Belize in May 2022. How much experience do you have with concrete block construction....?