Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: Lost code

Posted by mls-stl on June 23, 2012 at 08:58:25:
It appears you may have an incomplete understanding of how digital volume controls work, particularly when playing standard redbook CDs though a 24 bit DAC. There are 8 bits added to the 16 bit CD data, but they are all zeros. This allows a substantial degree of volume control with no loss of information.

It is also a mistake to think that analog volume controls lose no "information" when you reduce the volume. Our playback equipment (particularly if an analog source) and listening environments all have noise floors. If a recording has any dynamic range at all (often a big "if" these days), the bottom end of the dynamic range quickly moves toward the noise floor and is "lost" as far as your hearing is concerned.

Note that if, for background listening or whatever other reason, you've reduced the volume of the music from your "reference" level, you've already made a decision to lose or obscure some of the music.

I do not use a preamp, but have my digital playback source configured so that my reference listening sessions use the digital volume in the top end of its range. That works fine for me.