Volume for digital playback

[slipperybidness]

I never use AV software and never had any viruses. It happened 15 years ago once or twice until I've learned, not anymore. All ads are blocked and I never click anything I wasn't looking for. Internet is a good place for men to use their natural tunnel vision. It's a jungle and you have to hunt, if it comes on its own it's probably poisonous.

Now, about that gain... I understand what it is and all, but can you overdo it, can it be harmful in a sense that a signal becomes too strong for any link in the chain?

Yes, too much gain will either lead to clipping or audible hiss from the tweeters. I'm speaking in general terms, not your specific problem.

Any step in the signal chain that applies gain can cause problems. So, we typically start talking about "gain structure" which references the gain across the entire signal chain.

And, for reference, home theater amps are typically gonna be in the range of ~27dB to 32dB of gain (input to output gain for the amp only). When I set a gain on DIY amps, I have typically been shooting for 29dB and I've had good results.

 

[killdozzer]

Yes, too much gain will either lead to clipping or audible hiss from the tweeters. I'm speaking in general terms, not your specific problem.

Any step in the signal chain that applies gain can cause problems. So, we typically start talking about "gain structure" which references the gain across the entire signal chain.

And, for reference, home theater amps are typically gonna be in the range of ~27dB to 32dB of gain (input to output gain for the amp only). When I set a gain on DIY amps, I have typically been shooting for 29dB and I've had good results.

Thank you very much. I didn't hear any hiss, but the sound got muddy, very muddy when I played the music with gain turned on in the Foobar.

 

[MrBoat]

I really don't have any issue using either or method of controlling volume or gain. The only hiss I ever hear is if it's in the recording itself. Some recordings it's only at the beginning. Almost as if the engineer took a bit to correct it, or that it was present at the song intro, and then that dirty little bit was spliced to the rest of the recording. I notice this mostly on older, or older, private label recordings. It may give clue as to how many of our recordings are assembled in the studio, minus the producer saying. . . ."cut."

These days, I find Windows Media Player, or Cyberlink Power Media Player to work as well as anything. I like the convenience of the cyberlink player. Has all my stored music with the thumbs of the album covers and I am used to it, more than anything else.

Alternately, the most I ever hear about noise is with people who have other hardware in the mix, including DACs in the chain or some of the other connectivity options outside of analog.