So what's a poor boy to do in his home without a lab full of calibrated gear?

I would love to be able to come up with a table of objective noise values at different points of known gain, but all I really wanted to know was two things: was the noise level acceptable to me, how did the 950 compare to the Onkyo I was used to?

Without a 'mute' such as soundhound mentioned, I never expected 'near absolute zero' noise. I suspect that the Onkyo had such a mute that gave it an advantage at minimum volume.

Just tryin' to be 'at-home' practical!


[This message has been edited by bestbang4thebuck (edited August 07, 2004).]

The point I was trying to make (that seems to have been missed) was that in many instances it is improper calibration or other setup issues instead of the performance of the actual equipment that is at fault - and the equipment gets blamed. Sometimes it takes objective instrument measurement to sort it out. The original 950 was hissy in both listening and in measurements with lab gear. HOWEVER, I could have easily fooled someone who didn't know better with the original 950 that is was indeed very quiet by varying some gain structure setups elsewhere in my system - they would have never been the wiser. Measurements would spot it immediately.

Agree!