seanadams Wrote: > This is bad. For a hifi setup you should use an attentuator or preamp, > for safety reasons if nothing else. The problem is you are taking a DAC > with a decent SNR, and then only using a *TINY* fraction of its range > down close to the noise floor. I can not stress enough how detrimental > this will be to the sound quality!
Fair enough. After my last round of tests I can definitely appreciate what you're saying. The Paradigm Active/20 speakers can attenuate the input signal as it enters their self-powered amps. It's already cutting the signal, but I can drive it down a bit more while I drive the SB3 up. I'll have to see if I can cut enough off the input at the Active/20s to achieve a low enough listenable volume level while still leaving room for +/- volume control on the SB3. As for my temporary SB3 to AMP5 setup, I'm just out of luck since the AMP5 has no input attenuation (this was just a temporary measure anyway until my DAC is repaired). And it is an admittedly silly setup to begin with. seanadams Wrote: > > http://www.seanadams.com/1.gif > http://www.seanadams.com/2.gif > > 1.gif is a full-scale sine wave, and 2.gif is the noise floor when > nothing is playing (both plots are right-channel only). The peak you're > hearing is at 8865 Hz and is at -120.70 dBr. The left channel is > quieter, but still, 120dB down is very low **provided you have a > reasonable signal level**. Okay, so moral of the story is: there is some trace right-channel noise but under recommended usage it shouldn't be an issue. The headphone output though still seems problemmatic. Unless you have an outboard headphone level attenuator you're stuck with a noisy signal. -- banzai ------------------------------------------------------------------------ banzai's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5008 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=24445 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
