Phil Leigh;543499 Wrote: > I thought we had established that we are not "losing detail" until > you've shifted over 4 bits but raising the noise floor out of the DAC > (so the quietest sounds get closer to it or even in extreme cases, > below it - although you can still hear them). Personally I reckon you > can lose 4 more bits than that before you can detect anything in a DBT > - we obviously don't agree on this but there have been many tests over > the years that indicate people have difficulty telling 16-bit from > 16-bit reduced (properly) to 12 or even 10 bits. > > Anyway, yes I am using an analogue pre-amp, and I have the Vol on > 100... BUT I use Replaygain (which is the same as using the volume > control, with one important exception - it can also boost). > > > > Across my collection the AlbumReplaygain range is -12dB /+5dB average. > So on the loudest albums (which are all heavily compressed "loudness > wars" victims) I'm using 12dB of digital attenuation. On the quietest, > I'm boosting the level (pre-dac) by 5dB. > > I don't believe this has any audible effect other than changing the > level. > > I don't believe that may people on this forum advocate using the full > range of the digital attenuation with just a power amp, preferring > instead to set the gain-staging correctly via analogue attenuators > between dac and amp and using the SB attenuation between 70-100 (and/or > replaygain) > > > Your situation is different, since you have a fully digital chain into > your amps - so nowhere to insert the analogue attenuation?.
I never agreed 4 bits were free. In that test Volume 20 is a 4bit shift. If 4bits didn't lose detail you'd still have 96dB of dynamic range. But you get 76 dB. They attenuated 4bits and lost 4bits. I must have said that 6 times now. Replay Gain is a slightly different deal and I rethinking using it myself in a unique way. If you have CD's that are way over compressed they are junk anyway and probably have no low level detail. So you can't make them much worse. Boosting them is fine in fact is good because if a CD has too much headroom it's the same argument that it's better to bring them up to full scale. As long as you don't clip them. However Replay Gain by default uses RMS Volume to decide not Peak Data. So you need to be careful it does not cause significant clipping. Minor occasional clipping is not a big deal. I assume your premium albums have little on replay gain. So it's up to you if want to use it. I personally won't ever attenuate with replay gain. But I might consider boosting with it. But that presents some other complex problems in Meridian land I'm not going into here. We have thread on that topic actually on Meridian Forum. Just one quick comment any time you change volume digitally you need to redither and I'm curious if that happens and who does it. Plugin or SqueezeBox. I removed a 6dB digital attenuation from my system and I can hear the difference. I can't hear Meridian upsampling. I can't hear Merdian apodizing. I can't hear the difference between m...@320kps and flac. But I can hear the loss 6dB digitally does. You can research Meridian spekaers on your own if you want. But effectively they are DAC, Preamp, and ANALOG amps all in one box. It's exactly the same as a conventional setup it's just they put in all one box. They actually have 4 DAC channels and 4 amps in the box. Because they do crossover in digital domain. This allows amps to run 100% efficient compared to passive crossovers and avoid phase problems passive crossovers have. -- mswlogo XP > Cat5 > Transporter/DuetController > SPDIF > Meridian G68 > DSP6000, DSP5500HC, DSP5000 XP > Cat5 > SB3 > SPDIF > Meridian DSP5000 XP > Cat5 > DuetReceiver > SPDIF > Meridian G91 > DSP5000 'My Transporter Setup' (http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=350741&postcount=45) 'Hitch Hikers Guide to Meridian' (http://www.meridianunplugged.com) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mswlogo's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9090 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=77725 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
