![]() You hear things like "digital volume control is perfect because it is done in 32 bit" which is true in some aspects but not others. I agree that it was hard for me to wrap my head around the various volume control issues. ![]() If done right it should be the best possible solution for digital audio.Įarly in the digital age when it was not possible to upsample the signal it was for sure a limitation. Just like most other components or speakers. Sure, there are not always a digital volume does all things as it should. Without any signal just go from low to max gain and listen if you hear any change of noise. If you have a DAC or some other source with digital volume go close to the speakers. ![]() That way there will not be any noise when you lower the volume. This should be done in software on a computer or from the hardware itself. The way to solve the signal to noise problem with 16bit audio using a digital volume is to upsample the signal to 24 or 32-bit so you have a huge amount of headroom. It is not that the music will be distorted or unclear. To explain signal to noise we are talking about dynamic range. When you lower the volume on any passive volume control, digital or analogue the signal to noise ratio will go down and introduce noise. In many situations 2V is not enough to play real loud and you would need active preamp. That is 6db more and should be plenty for any setup. That will be max possible gain or volume (volume or gain is the same thing).įor XLR it is 4V. If you are using a passive or digital volume control you will have the voltage that come inn to work with. I still kind of understand it and can try to describe it in a way normal people can understand. Of course your effective SNR will still be limited by the analog noise floor.Ĭlick to expand.I agree. In contrast to a digital volume control an analog volume control will attenuate both signal and noise, preserving the signal to noise ratio as you attenuate. This is an area where it pays to have a DAC with high SNR so you can ensure a low noise floor. ![]() However in practice if you cannot hear any noise from your listening position with nothing playing then attenuating really doesn't lose anything as your ambient noise floor is higher than your system noise floor. This means that when you attenuate you are effectively reducing your signal to noise ratio. The second issue is that a digital volume control only attenuates the signal and does not attenuate noise. With digital volume control there are two issues to worry about, these will be the same whether you are using digital volume control implemented on a DAC chip or software volume control.įirst issue is quantization noise, in practice this is rarely an issue these days as volume calculations are typically done at 24 bit or better so you can attenuate 16 bit data by 48 dB before you even have the possibility of an issue. ![]()
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