10-07-2024, 12:24 PM
Hello there!
Noise is a audio system is always present, regardless of the circumstance or the device generating it.
for this reason, noise has to be related to the signal/audio passing through it (signal to noise ratio).
In other terms, if a noise floor gets amplified lots of times, it become surely audible, but probably all that gain is not necessary if the signal is already loud enough and doesn't need all that amplification. So we can't tell if there is too much/less amplification if we don't consider the actual signal to be heard.
It becomes an issue when after amplification, the audio signal is low compared to the noise and this last one is audible.
Measuring the signal-to-noise ratio can be too much of a job, but you can compare the two devices by gain staging them correctly (i.e. avoid amplification, then attenuation and then amplification again) and setting them at the same output level by ear.
In this case, you can tell if the device is too noisy for the signal you pass through it or for your application (for example, a very quiet signal like the one of a microphone needs lots of gain, therefore exists extra clean preamps for that purpose).
Noise is a audio system is always present, regardless of the circumstance or the device generating it.
for this reason, noise has to be related to the signal/audio passing through it (signal to noise ratio).
In other terms, if a noise floor gets amplified lots of times, it become surely audible, but probably all that gain is not necessary if the signal is already loud enough and doesn't need all that amplification. So we can't tell if there is too much/less amplification if we don't consider the actual signal to be heard.
It becomes an issue when after amplification, the audio signal is low compared to the noise and this last one is audible.
Measuring the signal-to-noise ratio can be too much of a job, but you can compare the two devices by gain staging them correctly (i.e. avoid amplification, then attenuation and then amplification again) and setting them at the same output level by ear.
In this case, you can tell if the device is too noisy for the signal you pass through it or for your application (for example, a very quiet signal like the one of a microphone needs lots of gain, therefore exists extra clean preamps for that purpose).