19 Jun
2010
19 Jun
'10
11:55 p.m.
On Sat, 2010-06-19 at 12:18 +0200, fons(a)kokkinizita.net wrote:
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 05:57:46PM -0600, Bearcat M.
Şandor wrote:
That doesn't mean its sensitivity is low as well.
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
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) The alsamixer volume controls make no difference
at all to jkmeter, but adjusting the
volume on mplayer does. Is this the expected behavior?
Yes.
I was not sure how to activate K20 or K14 given
jkmeter's interface.
See Robin's post.
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,