Am I right in saying that the amount of noise a system has, can eat up precious headroom? The reason I ask is, i'm kinda confused, a little. I used to have a QSC RMX2450 and a QSC PLX3002, and used to power 4 JBL MP418S subs. Now I used to power them by putting 2 subs on each channel of the PLX3002, running it into 2 ohms per channel, and at that impedance the PLX3002 can output 1,500 watts average power into 2 ohms per channel. I tried the same with my RMX2450, which at 2 ohms per channel can output 1,200 watts average power. I could clearly hear how the PLX3002 was louder, or definately seemed louder, and the difference was only 300 watts per channel. Do you guys think that, say for example, an amplifier with a S/N ratio of 107db can sound louder than an amplifier with the same power output per channel which has a S/N ratio of 100db? Am I right in thinking that with the amplifier which has the 107db S/N ratio, the noise floor is lower so not so much precious headroom is being taken up by the noise it suffers from?
My way of thinking and also confusion about this idea is because the way I see it is, if I set gain structure of my system (so I can accurately know how close i'm getting to clipping), and use an amplifier which has horrendous noise, say for example, an S/N ratio of 70db, and if the noise was so bad that it maybe registered on the vu meters without a signal coming through the system, and if for example the noise was so bad that I only had about (only for example not in real world terms) about 3db of headroom before clipping, that would mean most of the sound coming out the speakers would be mainly noise wouldn't it? And if I used an amplifier of the same power output with a brilliant S/N ratio, say 110db, would the music levelk be louder out the speakers because not so much noise would be taking up the headroom?
Or am I totally wrong, and a system can only output what it can output regardless of whether it's noise or music or whatever?
My way of thinking and also confusion about this idea is because the way I see it is, if I set gain structure of my system (so I can accurately know how close i'm getting to clipping), and use an amplifier which has horrendous noise, say for example, an S/N ratio of 70db, and if the noise was so bad that it maybe registered on the vu meters without a signal coming through the system, and if for example the noise was so bad that I only had about (only for example not in real world terms) about 3db of headroom before clipping, that would mean most of the sound coming out the speakers would be mainly noise wouldn't it? And if I used an amplifier of the same power output with a brilliant S/N ratio, say 110db, would the music levelk be louder out the speakers because not so much noise would be taking up the headroom?
Or am I totally wrong, and a system can only output what it can output regardless of whether it's noise or music or whatever?