about noise floor

[Stan2292]

i have a general understanding about noise floor now through reading threads and watching videos. but is there a way for me to know whether a particular audio equipment combo will produce noticeable white noise without test listening irl? is it possible to know the actual white noise level just by looking at headphone's impedence and amp's signal to noise/noise floor and other relative specs? if so, how? if not, is there a general rule of thumb? cheers.

[Ahoy Hoy]

You can, is it worth the time and effort, probably not since most modern devices and audio equipment have low enough noise floors its not a problem.
(Also cant desperately remember how due to how little I have ever had to deal with it Id have to get my university notes out)

Any problems with noise floors is normally because of poor gain structure (which is normally very obvious what's causing it and easily fixed). IE a computer volume is set to 2 out of 100 and the amp is set to its max to get a suitable volume. Yet setting the computer audio to 50 and the amps audio to half way the computer audio would be higher then the noise floor of the computer so the amp is nolonger boosting the noise floor.

 

In my day to day working life I find my problem with noise floor with Wireless IEM systems where if you don't send enough signal the listener boost too much RF interference and struggles to hear the sound over the noise floor of the RF. Solution to that, ram the gain up on my mixing desk and tell them to turn there headphone volume down.

[Stan2292]

18 minutes ago, Ahoy Hoy said:

You can, is it worth the time and effort, probably not since most modern devices and audio equipment have low enough noise floors its not a problem.
(Also cant desperately remember how due to how little I have ever had to deal with it Id have to get my university notes out)

Any problems with noise floors is normally because of poor gain structure (which is normally very obvious what's causing it and easily fixed). IE a computer volume is set to 2 out of 100 and the amp is set to its max to get a suitable volume. Yet setting the computer audio to 50 and the amps audio to half way the computer audio would be higher then the noise floor of the computer so the amp is nolonger boosting the noise floor.

 

In my day to day working life I find my problem with noise floor with Wireless IEM systems where if you don't send enough signal the listener boost too much RF interference and struggles to hear the sound over the noise floor of the RF. Solution to that, ram the gain up on my mixing desk and tell them to turn there headphone volume down.

thanks mate. so my question would be, say, i have a bunch of IEMs and headphones with anywhere from 20 to 300ohm of impedence. and i want to find an amp that is not only capable of driving them all, but also produce low or no noise on the most sensitive IEM/headphone i have. what sort of specs should i be looking for? just the noise floor stats or is there something more?

[ShearMe]

On 6/9/2022 at 5:10 AM, Stan2292 said:

thanks mate. so my question would be, say, i have a bunch of IEMs and headphones with anywhere from 20 to 300ohm of impedence. and i want to find an amp that is not only capable of driving them all, but also produce low or no noise on the most sensitive IEM/headphone i have. what sort of specs should i be looking for? just the noise floor stats or is there something more?

The noise floor of most recordings is going to be higher than that of almost any off the shelf equipment you buy today. Most humans can't hear past a 75dB SnR, and typical hardware SnR is about 120dB.

 

This video has SnR examples @ 32 minutes: 

 

[cmndr]

As hinted at - this doesn't matter a ton these days. It's closer to a binary than not - if noise is a problem then it's almost surely a quality control issue (read: exchange your product).
If you are worried about it - external DAC and power conditioning (which itself is almost never worth it). This probably doesn't matter a ton. You'll get a bigger shift in sound my moving your head 3 inches.