Well, firstly decibels are a relative scale. So 0 would be "not reduced or amplified." In that context, 90% could actually be considered the same as -10%, as they're both "10% less than the full level" but since you don't have an absolute point of reference with dB, the negative numbers make perfect sense.
Secondly, -10 is still less than 0, so I still don't really understand where it's confusing. Higher numbers are still louder, right? The comparison to -10K is irrelevant because you're comparing an absolute scale to a relative scale. On 11/27/06, Nix <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 23 Nov 2006, Linus Nielsen Feltzing told this: > mat holton wrote: >> You see, this is the problem when you let audiophiles or programmers >> design User Interfaces. > > Actually, the dB scale solves a very old issue on the Archos, namely > the question what volume to set to avoid clipping (0dB). The MAS chip > can set the volume above 0dB, you see. > > In the old Rockbox version, the answer was 92% (if I recall > correctly). I think "0dB" conveys that information much better than > "92%". Personally, being a mere programmer and not any sort of audio geek, I don't understand why 0dB doesn't mean `dead silence'. I mean, that's what decibels are, right, a unit of sound intensity? So how can you have a negative sound intensity? -10dB reads to me like -10K on an absolute temperature scale would (and, yes, I know that -10K really does have a meaning, but it's a rather obscure one that doesn't relate to *thermodynamic* temperature, i.e. to what most people understand as `temperature'). I'm an extreme geek compared to pretty much everyone else I know off-net. I don't think I know *anyone* who wouldn't be confused by a negative volume. (It confused me enough that I hunted through the source to fix the bug, saw that it was intentional, and left it alone, shaking my head over the apparent bizarreness of this scale.) -- `The main high-level difference between Emacs and (say) UNIX, Windows, or BeOS... is that Emacs boots quicker.' --- PdS
