signal-to-noise ratio important?

[d77543020 10+ year member]

i was just wondering how important is signal-to-noise ratio when it comes to a cd player for example would you rather have a player with 4volt out but a 95 signal-to-noise ratio or a deck with 2volt out with a 105 signal-to-noise ratio

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[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

It's technically double the noise on the 95 dB example. Would you hear the difference? Some people swear they could hear a pin drop across a crowded room, in which case they would swear the 95 dB S/N head unit is garbage. The rest of your system is going to contribute a lot more noise than the head unit, especially the speakers.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Well 95 db is roughly 56,000:1 and 105 db is 177,000:1

So could you hear noise if it was 56,000 times lower than the signal? I couldn't.

 

[nateberrier 10+ year member]

Probably not going to make much difference with 95 to 105 if the manufacturer is being honest. I could tell the difference between my 9887 and the kenwood 945, but not the 9887 and the 80prs etc. Its typically good practice to keep the head unit as high quality as possible. Start out with the cleanest signal cause its only going to get noisier as it goes down the equipment line.