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Volume Control and DSD

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Alex M:
Digital volume control leads to irreversible degradation of the signal. It will be better to avoid this.

By decreasing the volume, you decrease the bit depth. For example, by reducing the level of a 24-bit signal by 6 dB, you will get a 12-bit signal. Therefore, the adjustment of sound power must be done only after the DAC.

pschelbert:
by reducing 6dB you will get 23-Bit

24-Bit DAC reducing 48dB you will still have the redbook CD resolution of 16Bit.

If you hear with 110dB SPL (this is really loud!) and you reduce 48dB you will be at 72dB SPL (night volume).

So digital volume-control is at least as good as analog or better (left-right uniformity excellent, not doable analog).

michael123:

--- Quote from: pschelbert on July 25, 2018, 09:55:01 am ---So digital volume-control is at least as good as analog or better (left-right uniformity excellent, not doable analog).

--- End quote ---

trust your ears...

pschelbert:
yes I do it daily with my digital volume-control enabled

RD James:
Disable bitstreaming and have Media Center convert from DSD to high sample rate PCM instead.
Then you can use the internal volume control and volume leveling.
There's little reason to bitstream DSD in my opinion.


--- Quote from: Alex M on July 25, 2018, 09:39:32 am ---Digital volume control leads to irreversible degradation of the signal. It will be better to avoid this.
By decreasing the volume, you decrease the bit depth. For example, by reducing the level of a 24-bit signal by 6 dB, you will get a 12-bit signal. Therefore, the adjustment of sound power must be done only after the DAC.

--- End quote ---
6 dB is one bit. It doesn't halve the bit-depth.

With Media Center configured to use TPDF dither, there is no degradation of audio quality when using the internal volume control.
The signal to noise ratio is reduced - which means a slight hiss at very high volumes or with high gain amplifiers - but there is no distortion or other perceptible quality loss.
No DAC is 24-bit on its analog output, so that alone gives you a few bits that you can 'lose' without affecting sound quality at all.
There are advantages to digital volume control over analog volume control too, such as perfect linearity and tracking.

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