[LAU] digital volume sounds better at 0 dB?

["Bearcat M." Şandor]

Folks,

My system is set up as follows: computer with Asus Essence ST sound card
out to Trends Audio ta-10.1 amp to anthony gallo acoustics speakers.

In the alsamixer console program i note that the meters turn red as you
get towards the top but i think that's just a pre-set color band and
isn't really telling me anything about clipping or over-driving the
card. More important is the 'dB gain' indicator. Correct?

I seem to hear that when the dB gain is at 0 (volume at 100%) and i've
adjusted my integrated amp to the same (as far as i can tell) volume
that i would have listed to with the alsamixer control at 70 (dB gain
-18.00) that the sound is much fuller with better bass. My mate seems
to hear that as well.

Does this sound right? Could it really be that dB 0 sounds better on
this card in a noticeable way or is it just a psycho acoustic trick? Are
digital volume controls a "bad thing"? I think i've read that before
somewhere so again, i may just be psyching myself out.

Getting up to change the volume is a pain, but i might just invest (or
learn how to make) an outboard volume control if it really is that much
better at dB 0.

Bearcat M. Sandor

[Julien Claassen]

Hi!
I can't really tell, what exactly should happen. But a digital volume is
best kep around 0DB (no attenuation). Easy to explain: In digital sound, all
the samples are numbers (usually integer, meaning just whole numbers).
So the smaller you compress the realm of numbers (say from max 32768 to
50%), the differences in volume you can perceive are not as fine. If you get
really low down, the sound should be quite ugly. something akin to distortion,
if amplified.
I don't know about your bassy audiofeeling, but mayhap that's a side
effect,I just don't see, because I'm stupid when it comes to the finer points.
:-)
Kindly yours
Julien

--------
Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)

======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ========
http://ltsb.sourceforge.net
the Linux TextBased Studio guide
======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: =======
http://www.juliencoder.de

[Bearcat M. Sandor]

Post by Julien Claassen
Hi!
I can't really tell, what exactly should happen. But a digital
volume is best kep around 0DB (no attenuation). Easy to explain: In
digital sound, all the samples are numbers (usually integer, meaning
just whole numbers).
So the smaller you compress the realm of numbers (say from max 32768
to 50%), the differences in volume you can perceive are not as fine.
If you get really low down, the sound should be quite ugly. something
akin to distortion, if amplified.
I don't know about your bassy audiofeeling, but mayhap that's a side
effect,I just don't see, because I'm stupid when it comes to the finer
points. :-)
Kindly yours
Julien
--------
Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles)
======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ========
http://ltsb.sourceforge.net
the Linux TextBased Studio guide
======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: =======
http://www.juliencoder.de

Julien,

Thanks. That information is what i had suspected. I suppose i should
clarify what i mean by 'better bass'. I mean less smeared. There is a
leading edge to a cello string pluck that is not as present when the
sound card attenuation is turned down.

[Mark Knecht]

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
Folks,
My system is set up as follows: computer with Asus Essence ST sound card
out to Trends Audio ta-10.1 amp to anthony gallo acoustics speakers.
In the alsamixer console program i note that the meters turn red as you
get towards the top but i think that's just a pre-set color band and
isn't really telling me anything about clipping or over-driving the
card. More important is the 'dB gain' indicator. Correct?
I seem to hear that when the dB gain is at 0 (volume at 100%) and i've
adjusted my integrated amp to the same (as far as i can tell) volume
that i would have listed to with the alsamixer control at 70 (dB gain
-18.00)  that the sound is much fuller with better bass.  My mate seems
to hear that as well.
Does this sound right?  Could  it really be that dB 0 sounds better on
this card in a noticeable way or is it just a psycho acoustic trick? Are
digital volume controls a "bad thing"? I think i've read that before
somewhere so again, i may just be psyching myself out.
Getting up to change the volume is a pain, but i might just invest (or
learn how to make) an outboard volume control if it really is that much
better at dB 0.
Bearcat M. Sandor

The alsamixer colors are, as you suspected, simply preprogrammed and
don't in themselves say anything about how the sound would sound or
whether the card is being overdriven. Whether a given card experiences
clipping or power supply related issues is based on how much headroom
the design has.

In your tests have you accounted for Fletcher-Munson? If not please do
and then re-report your results.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher-Munson

If you have accounted for Fletcher-Munson then possibly there's
something in the card design that makes a difference but I suspect
that until you get sound volume levels up to around 80db (measured
with a good db SPL meter) that you may be 'hearing the human ear'...
Just a guess. (NOTE: an 80 db SPL is considerably louder than I
normally listen but I can attest that it does sound noticeably
better.)

Good luck,
Mark

[Bearcat M. Sandor]

Post by Mark Knecht

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
Folks,
My system is set up as follows: computer with Asus Essence ST sound card
out to Trends Audio ta-10.1 amp to anthony gallo acoustics speakers.
In the alsamixer console program i note that the meters turn red as you
get towards the top but i think that's just a pre-set color band and
isn't really telling me anything about clipping or over-driving the
card. More important is the 'dB gain' indicator. Correct?
I seem to hear that when the dB gain is at 0 (volume at 100%) and i've
adjusted my integrated amp to the same (as far as i can tell) volume
that i would have listed to with the alsamixer control at 70 (dB gain
-18.00) that the sound is much fuller with better bass. My mate seems
to hear that as well.
Does this sound right? Could it really be that dB 0 sounds better on
this card in a noticeable way or is it just a psycho acoustic trick? Are
digital volume controls a "bad thing"? I think i've read that before
somewhere so again, i may just be psyching myself out.
Getting up to change the volume is a pain, but i might just invest (or
learn how to make) an outboard volume control if it really is that much
better at dB 0.
Bearcat M. Sandor

The alsamixer colors are, as you suspected, simply preprogrammed and
don't in themselves say anything about how the sound would sound or
whether the card is being overdriven. Whether a given card experiences
clipping or power supply related issues is based on how much headroom
the design has.
In your tests have you accounted for Fletcher-Munson? If not please do
and then re-report your results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher-Munson
If you have accounted for Fletcher-Munson then possibly there's
something in the card design that makes a difference but I suspect
that until you get sound volume levels up to around 80db (measured
with a good db SPL meter) that you may be 'hearing the human ear'...
Just a guess. (NOTE: an 80 db SPL is considerably louder than I
normally listen but I can attest that it does sound noticeably
better.)
Good luck,
Mark

Mark,
I think that may be another matter. I'm not speaking of the dB/spl that
is coming out of the speakers. What i'm doing is adjusting the sound
levels on the left/right channels of my sound card and then adjusting
the volume control on my integrated amp to keep the spl coming out of my
speakers the same (or at least close to it). For instance if i had the
sound card volume at 50% and the amp volume control knob at 50% for 80
dB, then to do the experiment i would put the soudn card volume at 100%
and reduce the amp volume control by 50% to attain the same volume (i
know it would not work that way given a number of factors but it's just
an example). I'm wondering about the adverse effect of using the digital
volume control of the card, rather then just leaving the card at full
volume (0 dB) and adjusting the volume on the amplifier (analog volume
control) instead.

Is it worth it get out of my chair after every other track to re-adjust
the volume manually or is the difference i am hearing just in my head

Thanks for the link. That was interesting.

Bearcat

[f***@kokkinizita.net]

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
My system is set up as follows: computer with Asus Essence ST sound card
out to Trends Audio ta-10.1 amp to anthony gallo acoustics speakers.
In the alsamixer console program i note that the meters turn red as you
get towards the top but i think that's just a pre-set color band and
isn't really telling me anything about clipping or over-driving the
card. More important is the 'dB gain' indicator. Correct?

The meters are probably completely useless.

The chip used in your soundcard has a digital gain control
with a range of 0...-120 dB in steps of 0.5 dB. Does that
correspond to what alsamixer is showing ? If not you'd
better leave the gain at 0 dB.

If that soundcard really has the dynamic range that the
sales blurb claims it has, then its output level will be
a lot higher than what is expected by the average non-pro
amplifier, including 'audiophile' ones.

That means that you should turn down the power amp gain
quite a bit.

The correct alignment procedure would be:

1. Play a piece of music representative of what you
normally listen to. Check the digital level with e.g.
jkmeter, For classic use the K20 mode and ensure you
have a level around 0 dB. For pop use the K14 mode
and again ensure you have around 0 dB.

2. Set the gain of the soundcard to 0 dB,

3. Adjust the gain of the power amp to the maximum volume
you'd ever expect for this tyoe of music.

4. If you want to avoid an analog gaing control use a software
gain control (preferred), or the ALSA gain setting as your
volume control.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
I seem to hear that when the dB gain is at 0 (volume at 100%) and i've
adjusted my integrated amp to the same (as far as i can tell) volume
that i would have listed to with the alsamixer control at 70 (dB gain
-18.00) that the sound is much fuller with better bass. My mate seems
to hear that as well.

If the gain setting of the card has any impact on the magnitude
or phase response then simply the card is out of spec.
If the gain control of the power amp has any impact on the same,
again it's probably out of spec.

As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

Ciao,

["Bearcat M." Şandor]

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
The meters are probably completely useless.
The chip used in your soundcard has a digital gain control
with a range of 0...-120 dB in steps of 0.5 dB. Does that
correspond to what alsamixer is showing ? If not you'd
better leave the gain at 0 dB.

Alsamixer reports "dB gain 0.00, 0.00" to -60.00, -60.00 in .5 dB steps.
Does that correspond to -120 dB somehow (both channels == 120 dB total)?
(i'm a newb at all this)

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
If that soundcard really has the dynamic range that the
sales blurb claims it has, then its output level will be
a lot higher than what is expected by the average non-pro
amplifier, including 'audiophile' ones.
That means that you should turn down the power amp gain
quite a bit.

This is a low powered 10 watt max amp (class t chip)

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
1. Play a piece of music representative of what you
normally listen to. Check the digital level with e.g.
jkmeter, For classic use the K20 mode and ensure you
have a level around 0 dB. For pop use the K14 mode
and again ensure you have around 0 dB.

I compiled and started up jkmeter, then figured out how to output to it using qjackctl.
The alsamixer volume controls make no difference at all to jkmeter, but adjusting the
volume on mplayer does. Is this the expected behavior? I was not sure how to activate K20 or K14 given
jkmeter's interface.

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
2. Set the gain of the soundcard to 0 dB,

Done

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
3. Adjust the gain of the power amp to the maximum volume
you'd ever expect for this tyoe of music.

Done

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
4. If you want to avoid an analog gaing control use a software
gain control (preferred), or the ALSA gain setting as your
volume control.

You mean individual application volume controls as opposed to the sound
card mixer is preferred?

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
If the gain setting of the card has any impact on the magnitude
or phase response then simply the card is out of spec.
If the gain control of the power amp has any impact on the same,
again it's probably out of spec.
As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

So even though turning down the apps volume control theoretically
reduces the resolution of the sound it should have no bearing on the
quality of the sound presented? Or do software controls not do that at
all?

Thanks for the help Fons. I appreciate it and your fine software as
always.

[Robin Gareus]

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
The meters are probably completely useless.
The chip used in your soundcard has a digital gain control
with a range of 0...-120 dB in steps of 0.5 dB. Does that
correspond to what alsamixer is showing ? If not you'd
better leave the gain at 0 dB.

Alsamixer reports "dB gain 0.00, 0.00" to -60.00, -60.00 in .5 dB steps.
Does that correspond to -120 dB somehow (both channels == 120 dB total)?
(i'm a newb at all this)

No it does not add up that way. Maybe alsamixer is showing wrong
numbers?! Fons may know more.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
If that soundcard really has the dynamic range that the
sales blurb claims it has, then its output level will be
a lot higher than what is expected by the average non-pro
amplifier, including 'audiophile' ones.
That means that you should turn down the power amp gain
quite a bit.

This is a low powered 10 watt max amp (class t chip)

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
1. Play a piece of music representative of what you
normally listen to. Check the digital level with e.g.
jkmeter, For classic use the K20 mode and ensure you
have a level around 0 dB. For pop use the K14 mode
and again ensure you have around 0 dB.

I compiled and started up jkmeter, then figured out how to output to it using qjackctl.

Welcome aboard.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
The alsamixer volume controls make no difference at all to jkmeter, but adjusting the
volume on mplayer does. Is this the expected behavior?

Yes it is. Alsamixer controls the volume in the mixer of the sound-card.
JACK is all in software. Consider the following (somewhat simplified)
diagram:

JACKified-audio-app
(eg mplayer, ardour, jkmeter)
|
v
JACK-server
|
v
Soundcard ## hardware-mixer controlled by alsamixer
|
v
Amp & Speakers

When you adjust the volume in mplayer, mplayer itself scales the volume.
mplayer does not interact with the soundcard's hardware-mixer. (Well,
you can configure mplayer to do either or both, but the default with
mplayer/JACK is to use mplayer's integrated "amp".)

jkmeter (or any other JACK app) gets mplayer's audio directly from JACKd
without the audio-data going to the soundcard first.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
I was not sure how to activate K20 or K14 given
jkmeter's interface.

You need jkmeter version >= 0.4.0.
Run `jkmeter -type k14` to get the K14 scale (k20 is the default)
`jkmeter -h` prints usage and version information.

Information on the K-system can be found in jkmeter's README and at
http://www.digido.com/level-practices-part-2-includes-the-k-system.html

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
2. Set the gain of the soundcard to 0 dB,

Done

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
3. Adjust the gain of the power amp to the maximum volume
you'd ever expect for this tyoe of music.

Done

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
4. If you want to avoid an analog gaing control use a software
gain control (preferred), or the ALSA gain setting as your
volume control.

You mean individual application volume controls as opposed to the sound
card mixer is preferred?

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
If the gain setting of the card has any impact on the magnitude
or phase response then simply the card is out of spec.
If the gain control of the power amp has any impact on the same,
again it's probably out of spec.
As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

So even though turning down the apps volume control theoretically
reduces the resolution of the sound it should have no bearing on the
quality of the sound presented?

Reducing resolution always reduces the quality - some music just needs
to be played loud! :)

As long as you stay in the digital domain, gain changes will not effect
frequency or phase of the sound. But unless you have pro & high-quality
equipment: the analog part (soundcard, amp, speakers) does in practice
respond differently at different gain levels.

Niles Mayer recently elaborated on that:
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2010-June/070249.html

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
Or do software controls not do that at all?

As long as you stay in the digital domain (here: software) it'll be
"perfect".

Cheers!
robin

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
Thanks for the help Fons. I appreciate it and your fine software as
always.

[Ray Rashif]

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
The meters are probably completely useless.

+1

Though alsamixer, depending on your device, sets a threshold for
distortion somewhere near even -6dB (mine is when the numeric
indicator hits 90), the actual distorting point can be a little higher
in amplitude (but from experience not lower).

I think the notion of a "Digital Unity Gain" comes from the fact that
many in-the-box mixing engineers have a tendency to bounce to -0.3dB,
or any figure below 0dB depending on the standard operating level of
your target medium (like broadcast or live). This is to leave some
sort of safe headroom for when the digital material is being
processed/mastered to output through various devices, and how the 0dB
in digital is NOT 0dB in analogue.

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
Yes it is. Alsamixer controls the volume in the mixer of the sound-card.
JACK is all in software. Consider the following (somewhat simplified)
 JACKified-audio-app
(eg mplayer, ardour, jkmeter)
        |
        v
    JACK-server
        |
        v
    Soundcard  ## hardware-mixer controlled by alsamixer
        |
        v
  Amp & Speakers
When you adjust the volume in mplayer, mplayer itself scales the volume.
mplayer does not interact with the soundcard's hardware-mixer. (Well,
you can configure mplayer to do either or both, but the default with
mplayer/JACK is to use mplayer's integrated "amp".)

Yep, though MPlayer with ALSA will control the soundcard by default
(one can add -softvol for an internal "amp").

I like to think of my software audio levels (relative to output
devices) in terms of hardware mixers, where you have:

1) the trim pot (the amount of raw signal you let in)
2) the fader (controlling how much attenuation/amplification applies
to the signal; always at unity gain initially)

My PCM levels would then be my trim pot, and the rest are faders :)


--
GPG/PGP ID: B42DDCAD

[f***@kokkinizita.net]

Post by Robin Gareus

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
Alsamixer reports "dB gain 0.00, 0.00" to -60.00, -60.00 in .5 dB steps.
Does that correspond to -120 dB somehow (both channels == 120 dB total)?
(i'm a newb at all this)

No it does not add up that way. Maybe alsamixer is showing wrong
numbers?! Fons may know more.

I don't :-(. I assume ALSA just uses the upper half of the
range, which makes sense - less than unity gain in the 24-bit
domain also reduces the available range at the output, so it's
not a good idea anyway.

Ciao,

[f***@kokkinizita.net]

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
That means that you should turn down the power amp gain
quite a bit.

This is a low powered 10 watt max amp (class t chip)

That doesn't mean its sensitivity is low as well.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
The alsamixer volume controls make no difference at all to jkmeter, but adjusting the
volume on mplayer does. Is this the expected behavior?

Yes.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
I was not sure how to activate K20 or K14 given
jkmeter's interface.

See Robin's post.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
You mean individual application volume controls as opposed to the sound
card mixer is preferred?

If the application's gain control works on floating point
samples, yes.

The sound card's gain control works on the 24-bit signal.
For a gain below 0 dB it reduces the maximum available
output as well. For example if you set it to -18 dB (which
is 1/8 linear gain), the DAC will never use the upper three
bits - you now have a 21-bit system.

If the volume is set using a floating point gain control, and
the soundcard gain remains at 0 dB you have the full range of
the DAC regardless of volume.

Ciao,

["Bearcat M." Şandor]

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
That means that you should turn down the power amp gain
quite a bit.

This is a low powered 10 watt max amp (class t chip)

That doesn't mean its sensitivity is low as well.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
The alsamixer volume controls make no difference at all to jkmeter, but adjusting the
volume on mplayer does. Is this the expected behavior?

Yes.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
I was not sure how to activate K20 or K14 given
jkmeter's interface.

See Robin's post.

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor
You mean individual application volume controls as opposed to the sound
card mixer is preferred?

If the application's gain control works on floating point
samples, yes.
The sound card's gain control works on the 24-bit signal.
For a gain below 0 dB it reduces the maximum available
output as well. For example if you set it to -18 dB (which
is 1/8 linear gain), the DAC will never use the upper three
bits - you now have a 21-bit system.
If the volume is set using a floating point gain control, and
the soundcard gain remains at 0 dB you have the full range of
the DAC regardless of volume.
Ciao,

Fons,

Thank you! This is just the information i was looking for. *now* it
makes sense why i'm hearing such a difference with the sound card volume
up all the way and no deterioration when i adjust the software volume of
apps.

I had always wondered about this. In my hi-fi mags (yeah, i know, i know
reading those things has screwed up my mind), many companies decry
digital volume controls, where other companies embrace them. This
difference between floating point and linear gain control is an
important one. Thanks.

Bearcat

["Bearcat M." Şandor]

thanks folks for all of your insightful responses. I have it all set up
the way i want it to be for now and it sounds just great.

I set up jack a few weeks ago to replace Pulse. I'm not an audio
engineer so i don't *need* the low latency (does it make an audible
difference for playback?), but i liked the idea of having the ability to
pipe from one program and plug in to another. It's fantastic.

Bearcat

[Clemens Ladisch]

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
The chip used in your soundcard has a digital gain control
with a range of 0...-120 dB in steps of 0.5 dB. Does that
correspond to what alsamixer is showing ?

Alsamixer reports "dB gain 0.00, 0.00" to -60.00, -60.00 in .5 dB steps.

I removed the lower half of the range because I got complaints that the
controls were unusable in alsamixer (which uses a linear dB-to-screen
mapping at the moment).


Regards,
Clemens

[Bearcat M. Sandor]

Post by Clemens Ladisch

Post by "Bearcat M." Şandor

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
The chip used in your soundcard has a digital gain control
with a range of 0...-120 dB in steps of 0.5 dB. Does that
correspond to what alsamixer is showing ?

Alsamixer reports "dB gain 0.00, 0.00" to -60.00, -60.00 in .5 dB steps.

I removed the lower half of the range because I got complaints that the
controls were unusable in alsamixer (which uses a linear dB-to-screen
mapping at the moment).
Regards,
Clemens

Clemens,

Thanks for the clarification. I had wondered about that.

Bearcat M. Sandor

[Niels Mayer]

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
If that soundcard really has the dynamic range that the
sales blurb claims it has, then its output level will be
a lot higher than what is expected by the average non-pro
amplifier, including 'audiophile' ones.

Shouldn't the output level be the same, and only the resolution improved --
whatever is the standard peak-to-peak voltage
for consumer audio (~ 2vpp?). Otherwise, we'll risk electrocution when they
invent 64 bit DACs :-)

What a strange soundcard: i'd rather buy something with only digital outs
and connect an external DAC.
W/r/t the "AV100" chip, I wonder if there's bugs lurking given the fact
that it's a relatively new and probably not widely used card:/chip.
http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Module-virtuoso
http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/User:ClemensLadisch#CMI8788_driver_status
Xonar Essence ST AV100
Details[PCI] [ANALOGio] [RCAo] [TOSo] [24bit] [192kHz]
front panel mic input does not work ALSA 1.0.22 or kernel 2.6.33

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
Check the digital level with e.g.
jkmeter, For classic use the K20 mode and ensure you
have a level around 0 dB. For pop use the K14 mode
and again ensure you have around 0 dB.

Many thanks for pointing out jkmeter ( jkmeter-0.4.0-1.fc12.ccrma.x86_64 ).
I had to read
/usr/share/doc/jkmeter-0.4.0/README to get an idea of what you meant by K14
and K20:
..........
Instead of providing extra gain for the RMS level,
the K-meter displays it on the same scale as the
digital peak level, but puts the '0dB' mark and the
color change well below the OdB full scale level.
For the K-20 meter it is 20dB down, for the K-14
this is (surprise !) 14 dB.
.........

jkmeter feature request -- MIDI AGC: A MIDI output (!) which in it's most
simple form, sends a note-on/note-off on the midi channel where clipping has
occurred (then you can use something like Dominic Sacré's
http://das.nasophon.de/mididings/ to route to a mixer such as
envy24control).
In a more useful form, each clip would reduce the value of a MIDI controller
(one per midi channel) by a configurable amount.
A midi input (!) would read output slider values from a mixer
like "envy24control -m -M":
-m, --midichannel midi channel number for controller control
-M, --midienhanced Use an enhanced mapping from midi controller to db slider
The midi output of jkmeter++ would then decrement the given controller in
envy24control by a configurable amount each time clipping occurred.

.......

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
1. Play a piece of music representative of what you
normally listen to.

I usually prefer testing fine soundsytems with Muppet heavy metal (

)
or black death metal (

). (PS: j/k :-) )

-- Niels
http://nielsmayer.com

[f***@kokkinizita.net]

Post by Niels Mayer
Shouldn't the output level be the same, and only the resolution improved --
whatever is the standard peak-to-peak voltage
for consumer audio (~ 2vpp?). Otherwise, we'll risk electrocution when they
invent 64 bit DACs :-)

The limiting factors are the output impedance of the converter,
(which is a thermal noise source, no matter how good the DAC
is) and the noise floor of the output opamps.

Since most opamps can deliver much more than 2 Vpp, and
pro levels are higher anyway, it makes sense to expand
the range at that end.

Ciao,

[david]

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

Yup. Although I remember advice from decades back saying that whatever
your amp's volume setting, it needed to have enough power to drive the
bass frequencies. Those take more power because the speaker has to move
a lot more air for a strong bass response. So it's possible that your
amp gives you better bass response when you have it cranked up, simply
because that's when it has enough power to really drive your bass speakers.

I used to play bass, and remember times when my bass cabinet's 12"
speakers (driven by an amp rated at a measly 400 watts RMS) were moving
enough air to blow my bellbottom pants legs around.

But I'm no pro audio person, so listen to Fons and measure!

[f***@kokkinizita.net]

Post by david

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

Yup. Although I remember advice from decades back saying that
whatever your amp's volume setting, it needed to have enough power
to drive the bass frequencies. Those take more power because the
speaker has to move a lot more air for a strong bass response. So
it's possible that your amp gives you better bass response when you
have it cranked up, simply because that's when it has enough power
to really drive your bass speakers.

None of this depends on the gain setting which for most
power amps is just a potentiometer at the input, with
at most a low or unity gain stage in front. Reducing the
gain does not reduce the available power - it just takes
more input.

Instrument (guitar) amps are a different matter.

Ciao,

[Ken Restivo]

Post by david

Post by f***@kokkinizita.net
As long as you don't overload anything, there should be no difference.
Things like 'fuller bass' are impossible to comment on. If in doubt,
*measure* it.

Yup. Although I remember advice from decades back saying that whatever
your amp's volume setting, it needed to have enough power to drive the
bass frequencies. Those take more power because the speaker has to move
a lot more air for a strong bass response. So it's possible that your
amp gives you better bass response when you have it cranked up, simply
because that's when it has enough power to really drive your bass speakers.
I used to play bass, and remember times when my bass cabinet's 12"
speakers (driven by an amp rated at a measly 400 watts RMS) were moving
enough air to blow my bellbottom pants legs around.
But I'm no pro audio person, so listen to Fons and measure!

But, these go to 16777215!

(ducking now)

-ken