[TylerE]

Yes, it's a garbage number, especially for recreational listening.

The typical home will have enough background noise (HVAC, traffic, wind, etc) that the noise floor isn't especially relevant, but things like a rich midrange and good dynamics certainly will be.

Also, "degrades on each play" is a real overbid these days. Maybe 50 years ago when people used crappy stylii with non-counterwighted tonearms, that was a problem... but a decent turntable with a good cartridge is quite safe. It would take hundreds of plays for noticeable degredation to occur. I might draw a parallel to home users worrying about SSD write cycles - it's much more of a theoretical issue than a practical one.

[kalleboo]

I mean these days aren't people listening on crappy Crosley record players?