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Re: Too low vol setting bad for dynamics ?

Posted by Jacques (A) on July 24, 2005 at 09:52:44

In Reply to: Too low vol setting bad for dynamics ? posted by Trackside on July 24, 2005 at 05:58:48:

>is this killing my dynamics
No. It is only the case when volume control is done in the digital domain by multiplying the the audio value by the gain: on low settings, you lose bits of definition. For example, it's the way it works in your cellphone.
But it is not the case with your system.
> is there any advantage of atenuating either the input signal
The only advantage is that it's more user friendly to have a wider span of usable volume settings on the rotary knob. You may attenuate the input signal, but, since the noise in the PA won't be attenuated, you lower the signal/noise ratio. It is a problem? If, with no source signal, you can set the rotary knob at the maximum without hearing noise (on your system without attenuation, I mean), it means that you won't hear noise whatever attenuation is. In this case, you can attenuate the input signal to gain some usable span in the rotary knob.
>is there any advantage of atenuating .../...the speaker output
NEVER! The speaker wouldn't see anymore a few milliohms source impedance (the PA), but instead several ohms of the attenuator. As a result, you would jeopardize the Mission alignment.
For techies only, increasing the source impedance would increase Qes and Qts of the driver, thus increasing the lower cutoff frequency. The new Qes is increased by the ratio Source impedance/Steady driver resistance Re. So, you would also increase the total Q, Qts, which might cause an undesirable peak in the pressure response at the resonance frequency).
Furthermore, my above explanation doen't take into account the passive crossover that would also be unaligned (I don't like passive xovers, but that's another story!): it is calculated for a near-zero source impedance.

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Kimber Kable

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