The speaker paused at the key moment; there, silence beat any sound.
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From Bai Juyi's (白居易, Tang dynasty) 《琵琶行》 ('Song of the Pipa'), describing the pause in the pipa player's performance: 别有幽愁暗恨生，此时无声胜有声 — 'a hidden grief and secret sorrow rise within her; at this moment, silence surpasses sound.' The line became a standard reference for the expressive power of musical and rhetorical pauses.
usage
Applied well beyond music: used of pregnant silences between lovers, dramatic stage pauses, and the moments when an argument is conceded without a word. 胜 reads shèng ('to surpass'), not shēng.
