Reality Check Time. Agonising over where it's best to apply volume control is basically a waste of time and effort.
An audio playback system has a fixed amount of gain. It also has a fixed amount of noise. For any given desired listening level, you need to reduce the signal level such that the fixed amount of gain gets you the playback volume you want. While lowering the input level reduces the playback volume of the wanted signal, it doesn't reduce the noise, which remains fixed. It really doesn't matter whether you reduce the input signal level in the digital or analogue domain. The result to all intents and purposes is exactly the same - as you turn down the volume, the S/N ratio gets worse. If you reduce the volume digitally, the least significant bits of resolution (ie. lowest level of detail) disappear into the digital quantisation noise. If you reduce it in the analogue domain, you also lose the lowest level of detail, which disappears into the analogue noise floor. The only difference is that by attenuating digitally, the intrinsic noise of the DAC becomes more significant, which doesn't happen if you keep the digital signal at 100% and instead increase the analogue attenuation. BUT: the linearity and noise floor of any modern competent DAC is so low it's really just academic. The noise in the rest of the system will swamp it. You'll never actually hear the difference under normal listening conditions. So in conclusion: unless you've got an insane amount of gain in the system, you won't hear a difference between digital and analogue volume control. Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 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
