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Volume Control and DSD

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pschelbert:
My audio chain, player JRiver, at max volume (120dB SPL peak) at 2.5m, you can hear no noise if you play a file with silence.

With real audio files I mostly hear noise at the beginning of the music, digitally enregistered noise and hiss, reproduced with precision :)

DAC has 24-Bit theoretical and ca. 20Bit real resolution. PowerAmps a bit over 105dB SNR.

So, no problem with digital volume control in JRiver.

Alex M:
Decibel is a nonlinear measurement value
A change of 6 dB is equivalent to a voltage change of 2 times, a power of 3.98 times.
Therefore, the highest bit is lost and the 24-bit signal becomes 12-bit.

p.s. In MC 1% = 0.5 dB (20-100%)
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69939.msg471528#msg471528

pschelbert:
The highest bit is lost so you will have still 23bits.

Alex M:

--- Quote from: pschelbert on July 25, 2018, 11:11:48 am ---The highest bit is lost so you will have still 23bits.

--- End quote ---

Looking from which side to consider  :)

Gain -6 db in any audioeditor reduces the signal amplitude by a factor of 2


p.s. It's even strange that such elementary things have to be explained here.

RD James:

--- Quote from: Alex M on July 25, 2018, 10:52:23 am ---Decibel is a nonlinear measurement value
A change of 6 dB is equivalent to a voltage change of 2 times, a power of 3.98 times.
Therefore, the highest bit is lost and the 24-bit signal becomes 12-bit.

p.s. In MC 1% = 0.5 dB (20-100%)
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69939.msg471528#msg471528

--- End quote ---
That's not how digital audio works. 6.01 dB = 1-bit.
If what you said was true, reducing the volume by only 18 dB would result in 3-bit audio rather than 21-bit.
 
16-bit audio is considered to have a 96 dB dynamic range and 24-bit 144 dB - though that's not strictly accurate when you account for dithering (which improves it).
You 'lose' the lower bits first since you're reducing the volume - though noise-shaped dither can reproduce audio below that theoretical noise floor of -96/-144 dB.
This is an example of a 1 kHz tone encoded at -105 dB in a 16-bit file using noise shaping:

 
Considering the actual dynamic range of music, and how mastering typically pushes the audio into the upper bits, you're not losing any actual audio until you start making significant volume reductions.

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