Though I'm sure I'm in the minority thinking that would be "fun". It might be fun to have a friend help you do blind-testing to determine at what digital volume you can really hear the difference, by comparing SPL-matched combinations of (amp volume, digital volume) pairs. But whether or not you could audibly detect the degradation is another matter. So, be aware that it does degrade the signal quality. Relatively small volume adjustments (volume levels > 70% on the SqueezeBox, for instance) don't degrade the signal very much, and I'm not at all certain I could identify such a small digital volume adjustment under blind testing conditions. But if I am going to be listening critically, I prefer to use the analog volume control and keep the digital volume at 100%. Having said all that, I still use the (digital) volume control on my SqueezeBox during casual listening, since the SqueezeBox has a remote and my amp does not. And you have some degradation of the signal, which we experienced trying to halve the volume of the original sample with the value of 13.Īlso, we only reduced the signal without changing the noise floor (your amp still has the volume at the same level, but the signal is only half as dynamic as it could be at full digital volume), which is another kind of signal degradation. With the volume reduced by half, the range of sample values is 0-7 (8 possible values, and just 3 of the 4 available bits). Same stream, with the volume digitally reduced by half:Ģ : 7 (really 6.5, but rounded up to 7, since we can't represent 6.5) Original stream: 96KHz (though it doesn't matter for this example), 4-bit words (= values between 0 and 15, which is REALLY low quality, but I chose it because the sample values are small numbers and thus it's easy to do the math in your head) Here's a (hopefully) simple example to illustrate: When you adjust the volume digitally, you "give up" some bits. Here's a primer on digital audio, if you aren't familiar with how it works:Ĭonsider that if you have a 96KHz / 24-bit signal, you won't be using all of it when the volume has been digitally reduced. But it might be worth the trade-off for convenience, since it may not be very audible depending on how far you adjust the volume digitally. The short answer is that yes, it does affect the sound quality.
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