Well - interesting results so far... (SB3-TACT 2.2-Altmann JISCO+UPCI-MF X-DAC v3+PSU, MF X-10 Tube buffer, Chord Signature interconnects)
Firstly, I set the TACT peak indicator to 0dB to see what was going on with a few CD's. First up was the 1st Killers Album (Hot Fuss) - I took a wild guess this was going to be heavily limited and certainly the 0dB light is blinking on quite a lot. Then I checked Steely Dan, Everything Must Go and the remastered 1st Dire Straits album - I was slightly surprised that the light would come on occasionally with these - seems to be snare drum hits that are doing this (I haven't had time to visually inspect the WAV's). Anyway the next step was to change the "Digital Output is Fixed setting. Then I lowered the volume from 40 to 39 (I'm running 6.3.1 btw). The 0dB light now never comes on - which is what I'd expect, since I've just taken away the "16th bit" that would get the level up to 0dB (yes I know I'm simplifying). Fortunately my pre-amp lets me increment the level in 1dB "clicks" on the remote so I can easily make up the lost gain. Several tracks later I'm starting I'm not sure I can reliably hear a difference... So I tried lowering the digital volume to 36 (from 40) - I'm not sure quite how this relates to Mat's "80%" setting...anyway, more make-up gain later and I'm now starting to hear the impact of lowering the effective SNR (I'm adding quite a lot of gain in the pre-amp by now...) I think I'm going to set the level at 39/40 and live with that for a while before coming to any conclusions. If there is anything to hear as a result it will be coming from the DAC not having to handle 0dB peaks... I'm sure there used to be a school of thought that there shouldn't be anything at 0dB on a CD (I've always kept to a peak of -0.5dB) -- Phil Leigh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31165 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
