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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: RE: The right playback software handles it.... posted by AbeCollins on January 22, 2024 at 09:29:28:
Depends.
The loudest a DAC could play is called 0 dBFS, say all bits are on.
If we lower the volume digital we 'shift' to the LSB.
If we play 16 bit program material on a 16 bit DAC and lower with 48 dB, we have only half of the number of bits left.
MSB LSB
1111111111111111
0000000011111111
Yes, we do loose resolution and with each bit chopped off, 6 dB of the dynamic range.
If we play 16 bits program material on a 24 bit DAC and lower with 8 bits (48 dB) we still have all 16 bits in the register of the DAC.
111111111111111100000000
000000001111111111111111
IMHO with modern 24 or 32 bit DACs, digital volume control is not an issue, we don't lose resolution.
The fundamental difference between analog and digital VC is that analog reduces signal and noise so the SNR is constant. Digital VC can only alter the samples so by design the SNR will become worse.
However with modern DACs having a noise floor as low as -140 dBFS, even modern ultra silent power amps can't resolve this so should we worry.
Digital volume control doesn't have imbalance nor will it crackle.
The Well Tempered Computer
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Follow Ups
- can limit the resolution (by truncating bits) - Roseval 02:36:09 01/23/24 (2)
- "If we play 16 bit program material on a 24 bit DAC" - AbeCollins 08:02:56 01/23/24 (0)
- "...analog reduces signal and noise so the SNR is constant." - mlsstl 06:37:30 01/23/24 (0)
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