We talk a lot about volume—power, headroom, slam. But for me, the real magic often starts with quiet.
Not silence. Music needs silence like a photo needs contrast. It’s the backdrop that lets everything come into focus.
The quiet I’m talking about is the noise floor. The background hush a system adds—or doesn’t. When you get that part right, the whole soundstage opens up. The space between notes becomes a canvas. You can hear the room around the piano, the breath before the bow.
Years ago, after designing a new preamp, I noticed something strange. I could hear into the music in a way I hadn’t before. Cymbals bloomed longer. Voices had texture, air. The gear had gotten out of the way.
What we measured was absence. Absence of noise. Of distraction.
Clean AC power, direct-coupled circuits, high-quality passive components—they all matter. But in the end, it’s about the illusion. The stage vanishing. And it turns out, one of the most important players on that stage… is what's not there.
The quiet.
