bhaagensen;287292 Wrote: > How can this be the same ? Presumably the amp doesn't know what noise > is, and will amplify whatever noise it is being fed just as happily as > anything. A power amp with a fixed gain adds constant noise. If you feed a smaller signal in, you get an output with a lower SNR.
I think the point you are trying to make is that any noise added as a result of digital attenuation in the SB3 will just be signal to the amp, so it will be amplified faithfully. Yes, of course that's correct. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I only raised the issue because it seems that some people think that analogue volume control has no effect on SNR. There is no debate that using digital attenuation in front of a given analogue path degrades the SNR. But from a practical perspective, if the starting SNR is high enough, any such degradation will be inaudible in the context of normal listening. My personal view is that the ideal solution is usually to ditch the active preamp completely, on the basis that the degradation caused within its circuitry is typically worse than the degradation caused by digital attenuation. But of course if you're using an integrated amp (like the Nait) then that isn't an option. Once again: all I did was suggest a simple experiment that the OP could try which might solve his problem. -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=45736 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
