On Fri, 2005-09-30 at 10:57 -0700, x94blair3 wrote: > Let me address this question (since I can follow it). Originally I had > my SB2 set at max (40 I think it is?) and I had my receiver down pretty > low (in the evening when I'm sleeping)..it sounded awful. I've now > scaled back the SB2 volume to "20" and of course had to up my receiver > volume to make it sound as loud. Now it sounds better.
So you need to play with the settings to find the best setup. The term is usually "gain staging" which means adjusting the gain (aka volume) on each part in the signal chain so that each is in its optimal zone. This requires tradeoffs, too low causes noise to be audible, too high causes distortion. And when you have three or more stages, changing one means impacts the others, so you have to then change two or three more. > >From what I can tell it appears this is because the SB2 is putting too > much "power" (probably wrong term) at vol. 40 for my receiver so then > the sound is distorted? It is really voltage, but power is close enough. Right, you are over driving the input stage of your receiver. So doctor doctor, don't do that. > If this is correct, is there any sort of mathematical formula to figure > out what volume on the SB2 my receiver would be happiest with? Or maybe > it doesn't work that way. If not I guess I can just set my SB2 to > whatever volume and crank up the receiver accordingly. If the gear has real engineering specs, you can theoretically calculate it. But most consumer electronics plays fast and loose with the specs. So you get to do it by ear. I'd start with the SB2 at about 1/3 max volume (quieter than half) and work up and down to ear. But I don't know what the audio taper is on the SB2 volume control is, it could be linear or it could be audio tapered, so I don't know exactly what number is 1/3. Whatever sounds best is best. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
