Digital Volume Control & Alternatives

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by direstraitsfan98, Jun 20, 2018.

  1. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    There's been a few apps or videos where digital attenuation was necessary. The sound was really distorted on max volume and after lowering it a bit the distortion disappeared. It seems to have been a form of digital clipping.
     
  2. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    I was recently reading one of Archimago's posts about the same thing with the Audioengine D3 dac...

    http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/03/measurements-another-look-audioengine.html

    I guess there's no accounting for flawed design.
     
  3. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Today i hooked up the Yggdrasil to my studio monitors with xlr directly to try out digital volume. But i could notice some fuckery going on, seemed more detailed but also more fatiguing(maybe balanced vs unbalanced on Yggdrasil). Was testing with jriver internal volume but i guess -40db is too much for digital volume. I'm not a loud listener, it usually is around 70db.
    I just put the Saga back in, even in passive mode it was much easier on the ears. Tomorrow i might play with it again and adjust gain on the back of the monitors to the lowest setting.
     
  4. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    Yeah, as Marv pointed out, going successfully with digital attenuation does rather presume that the system is fairly balanced from a gain perspective. I don't know the precise formula, but -40 means there's a lot of maths going on.

    FWIW, I'm finding that about half that (ok it's logarithmic, I mean -20 ish) with a (good) sabre dac sounds just fine, and more transparent than having Freya in the signal path. Everything I'm reading about the ESS 32-bit volume implementation suggests it's very good at retaining the important bits.

    On the other hand, I used to use a Squeezebox and the digital fuckery that heavy attenuation caused on that thing was nuts.
     
  5. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Well i think i'm "stuck" with Saga, i just looked at the back of the monitors and they are already at +6dBu which is the lowest sensitivity setting. Like i said, not a loud listener(not needed in nearfield and my room). Ah well i'm still happy. Sure is fun to mess with things and then tell your nervosa to f**k off :)
     
  6. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    Everyone says Saga is really neutral (far more than Freya), so nervosa be damned :)
     
  7. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Being too broke to buy new gear will make this easier, not that I would recommend this method.
     
  8. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Yep, that's why i went with it in the first place though having Freya in this current setup would be more handy.
    I have become more sensible with my finances as i got older, when i still lived at my parents and had a full time job i had too much gear money. Thank god i wasn't much into audio back then but a new videocard, mobo or cpu every couple of months was the norm. Got a bit spoiled i guess :)
     
  9. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    I do think that one important distinction is whether volume control is at the DAC level or within the app. Allowing the DAC to control the volume is usually better. Schiit DACs do not allow volume control even though the AKM chips are capable of it.

    Edit:

    I think this is better known as hardware vs software volume control
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2018
  10. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    Well it all depends with how many bits you start out with doesn't it? Would not like to give away too many bits of a 16 bit signal but if we are talking 32 bits there are bits galore to attenuate, aren't there?
     
  11. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    So is the Primaluna preamp gone now in lieu of the DSJ volume ctrl?
     
  12. Garns

    Garns Friend

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    @bazelio am I correct in thinking that an autoformer/transformer based pre will actually improve the output/input impedance ratio between source and amp as opposed to a resistor based pre which makes it worse? Is that evident in practice?
     
  13. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    The question I wanted to answer was:

    Is this much money worth having in my system.

    Ultimately I said it's not. I have yet to try a cheaper preamp because I'm honestly not that motivated to do so given the small delta I experienced with a really good preamp. Maybe I'm deaf and maybe my system blows chunks compared to some, but I'd much rather spend those thousands of dollars on something more apparent and appreciative than a maybe 10% gain at best.

    In my opinion, the law of diminishing returns happens rather quickly...
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2018
  14. MrTeaRex

    MrTeaRex His head's not fat, he's my brother!

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    The DirectStreams (both Jr and Sr) are considerably noisier than most other DACs as a result of their single bit designs with digital switches in the output stage. This makes digital attenuation for the DirectStreams especially problematic as the available range is severely limited. The designer, Ted Smith openly acknowledges the issue and attempted to work around it by providing a relay that attenuates the outputs 20db by adding a shunt resistor to ground. Enabling the relay lowers both the signal and noise floor by 20db, while digital attenuation only lowers the signal. In practice, even the attenuator workaround wasn't sufficient with my DirectStream Sr (6db quieter than the Jr) as more than a couple db of digital attenuation still degraded sound quality. I ended up using a number of passive preamps of varying quality, any of which were more competent than the digital attenuation. FWIW, Ted uses an external preamp himself.
     
  15. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    Yes it will, the higher the attenuation the more it will reduce the impedance:

    R2 = R1 x (V2/V1)2

    So if you reduce voltage to half the initial voltage you will have a fourth of the initial impedance:
    http://www.promitheusaudio.com/tvcfaq.htm


    For calculating voltage from attenuation:
    http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-amplification.htm

    So the lower the level of the signal due to attenuation the lower the impedance, that’s handy
     
  16. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    No problem, Iris. We're here to help.
     
  17. Madra

    Madra Acquaintance

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    @direstraitsfan98 , this is something that is worth keeping an eye for, and may be a game changer.

     
  18. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Yeah, I was just looking at this last night as I've been thinking about trying different amps. Some solid state amps have input impedance of 10k, compared to my tube amp with 50k. But with the AVC, the load is reduced 50% for every 3dB you attenuate. Therefore it becomes trivially light at -28 dB or so which is about where I normally am with my current amp, meaning the source essentially just sees the inductive reactance of the autofrmer. Slagle says his is gapped to 100H, so something like 12k at 20Hz? I double checked my source OI for my phono and Stereophile says 60. So not bad; about 200:1. I could easily get away with using a less efficient amp with lower input impedance than my current amp unless my back of the envelope math is wrong.
     
  19. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    The digital volume control in the Metrum Jade (which I assume is the same as Adagio?) sounds very interesting:

    http://www.the-ear.net/review-hardware/metrum-acoustics-onyx-and-jade-digital-analogue-converter

    Wondering if anyone has heard this implementation and whether it sounds good/transparent compared to a good seperate preamp/TVC/AVC on the same DAC?
     
  20. Reggy

    Reggy New

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    Would anyone like to rave on a very transparent passive preamp they have in there system for a modest price? What I don't get in this preamp world is there is a very limited amount of preamps in general in the sub $1000, a huge enthusiastic community for DIY volume pots, solder away...- , and on the other side a plus +$2000-$42000 market for preamps.

    Like guys it's either I go for a sub $100 controller like this:

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/JEMMY-AUDI...767250&hash=item467920ad01:g:eM8AAOSwE0Zas-er

    or all out on this $42,000 recommendation : Stereophile's snake oil recommendation https://www.stereophile.com/content/2014-recommended-components-preamplifiers TAD Laboratories C600

    The members on SBAF are probably one of the wisest (take Gearslutz for comparison), yet there is no rave or certainty about this side of the audio chain, there is just a mature discussion of some the technical possible benefits of the different types (resistive elements vs transformer elements) without any underlying consensus of what works and what doesn't. And what makes a difference in aspects such neutrality, transparency, channel balancing, aesthetics, impedance matching etc.

    Companies like Tortuga and Luminous sell their products as such with their technical claims but there are no appearing proponents if these products are the end-all be-all for their "modest price" .

    There are people who own quietly, unique yet expensive products which are never really common among other enthusiasts heard yet, "that is what they use" despite not flexing any sort of pretentious opinion on why this is superior or good enough for their use. Again, I appreciate modesty, and to spend that amount is their choice, I just don't see any hard backings out there on anything. Very vague world for this sort of stuff in the chain. After all an attenuator may end up doing just that and after that there is really not too much to talk about.

    What's the truth of transparency vs the words of a salesman or misleading hype giving respect to your wallet for monitor controllers/line stages/passive pre-amps?

    What options do I really have when looking for a respective balanced XLR passive preamp?
     

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