Arny Krueger wrote:

"Eeyore" wrote
Jim Lesurf wrote:
Arny Krueger

The noise floor of a well-made recording is on the
order of 75-80 dB. Below that is the noise floor,
usually from analog (thermal) sources. This is many
times more than is required to properly dither a proper
16 bit conversion.

I'd be interested in seeing data on the noise
performance of studio mics and preamps, etc.

Neumann TLM103. Equivalent noise floor of 7dBA
http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=c...id=tlm103_data
Dynamic range of the microphone amplifier (A-weighted)
131 dB

That's real good. The Rode NT1-A is a bit more economical and speced to have
self noise of 5 dB.

The fly in the ointment is coming up with a musical acoustical source that
goes up to 138 dB when played in a typical sort of way.

What fly would that be ?

Have you any idea what PEAK acoustic levels some unamplified instruments can
reach ?

Graham