Buzzing/hum from the transformer is very possibly caused by DC on the mains, and this is particularly likely to be the case if it is intermittently variable, The solution, other than locating the cause (only possible if within your own home, which it may not be), or finding another amp or PS less susceptible, is installing a DC blocker.
But it is part of the total noise flood in the listening environment, and if the hum is loud, anc you play music quietly, it can just as much mask the sound (or be annoying) as electrical noise generated in the electronics.
Oh, and there is another contributor to noise if you use vinyl - the surface noise if the disk itself, which can vary from disk to disk apparently according to the plastic mix, as well as causes by ingrained dust or groove wear/damage.
Yes, the infamous hum!
I guess this is a trade-off between Silent Dark Inky Blackness and Foot-tapping.
What if we can have both!
The Foot-Tapper and The Big Fish has planted seeds which can cultivate the best off both worlds!
PS. Spacing and isolating those massive transformers wich contributes to the ‘Naim Sound’ can be beneficial in reducing the infamous hum!
I used to experience hum from my HiCap DR but added a Russ Andrew’s Absorber unit to my system a couple of months back. I’ve not noticed any hum from the HC since then. Coincidence perhaps.
Can’t say I’ve ever noticed a noise floor on my system.
Well I have not had hum in my system in my current house at all.
I did notice a major change when I added the 555 psdr a couple of weeks ago. And it was this sense of really still quiet in the quiet parts of the music.
In that sense the noise floor of my system has been lowered.
In the sense of the definitions given above where noise floor is the total amount of em noise in the system visualised as growing upwards from the ground, and swallowing or flooding the signal if the noise becomes relatively large compared to the signal.
My guess is that turning off the internal power supply in the 272 has got rid of a lot of noise.
Simon in Suffolk once used to bring reference to the Mandelbrot effect in describing listening to some hifi device he was keen on at the time.
This suggests an infinite resolution that keeps on resolving no matter how close you keep looking within.
A perhaps romantic ideology, as that resolution will without a doubt hit a brick wall and stop micro resolving itself.
I like to think that that brick wall is the floor, the noise floor - the event horizon that no more resolution can reveal itself.
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Sitting at my listening position the noise floor of the system is below the ambient background level in the room, and so inaudible to me. (In different words that is the same as for for CG).
But to explore noise a bit further: I can hear a feint hiss if I stand right beside a speaker - so if my room were exceptionally quiet (e.g. if it was completely sound isolated from external sources of noise including all house-generated sounds, that may no longer be the case. It wouldn’t affect the sound level when I play music, and if I wanted I could play music at a lower level than now and still hear it (the music) clearly at a level where now, perhaps it would disappear into the ambient noise.
Alternatively if I were to swap my speakers for highly efficient horns, with the room as it is (when I would have to use a lower volume control setting for the same listening level), I quite likely would find that when I try to listen at a low level the music may disappear into the hiss, the hiss then being perhaps 15dB or more louder than now.
Perfect… and it’s about when you hit that brick wall or void…
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Funny way to demonstrate “noise floor” and to a certain extent show how we automatically compensate for it . The tv in my bedroom usually has the volume set at 12 or 13 - 20 is loud, however, I have an old oscillating fan in the room. When i run that the “normal setting” jumps to 18/19 and that seems ok even though it is really much louder than before. The noise floor (although technically not correct) can be thought of as the ambient noise level before the music can be heard- yes it is meant to be what is heard above the electrical hash in your system, but really it includes the ambient noise all around you- and to a certain extent the noise you generally “filter out”.
For me its difficult to explain. Its like how deep do I fall into the music. Am I amongst it?
Sometimes I think its better in the wee hours of the morning when life is more silent and Its just me and the music. Way less interference in the power supply and so on.
Yes very good question and food for thought.
EDIT. Can I get that sense of scale at low volumes.
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