garym wrote: > and the takeaway from that thread is that having your touch digital > volume at around 60 or higher means that your not losing anything > (because the touch can do digital volume control using 24 bits > essentially). I have my amp/preamp volume set such that I'm usually at > 70 or above on the Touch.
I think this is an interesting question. I had read somewhere in these forums that on the SB Touch, that every 1% back off from 100% is equivalent to 0.5 dB. So, I currently set my SB Touch to 88%, or a 6 dB back off. I think this is equivalent to a 1 bit shift in the 24 bit samples coming out of the Touch, so there should be no loss. I have found that for some of the music I listen to, that running the Touch at full output results in distortion that I can sometimes discern. I suspect it is the result of pushing my DAC to full output. I think a slightly reduced level in the stream feeding my DAC takes care of this. I rely on the analog volume control in my preamp for controlling volume in my system. Leaving the DAC output high allows me to use a lower gain in my preamp, and I believe that results in a lower noise floor. So in my system, it is a trade off between THD and noise. I prefer a little bit of noise which I don't notice anyway, to distortion. Long story ... short story is that my SB Touch is set to 88%. *Living Room:* SB Touch + DIY PSU > CI Audio VDA.2 DAC + VAC.1 PSU > VRX.1 cables > Emotiva XSP-1 Gen 2 preamp + XPA-DR2 amp > Blue Jeans cables > B&W 804 speakers *Laptop:* System76 Galago + Ubuntu 16.04 + Squeezelite/gmrender + Material Skin > Emotiva Little Ego DAC > Senn HD 650 headphones *Phone:* Pixel 3a Phone + BubbleUPnP + Kiwi/Material > Bluetooth > Bose SoundLink Revolve *Server:* Puget Systems Serenity + Ubuntu 18.04 + LMS 8.0 *Music:* Personal FLAC, Radio Paradise FLAC, Qobuz, Spotify ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ron F.'s Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5616 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=111714 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
