On 12-08-2012 17:11, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Sun, 2012-08-12 at 18:02 +0200, Tom Gundersen wrote:
The second case, where the total gain should be <0dB, I would have thought intuitively that doing this purely in software (especially on very faint signals) would be less ideal than doing it in hw (you'd be throwing away the resolution, wouldn't you?), but I'll admit that I don't have the experience to talk about that with any authority.
It's a common misconception that keeping the level lower than 0dB would lead to less "resolution". It depends to the sampling rate and bit depth and less to the level control.
Sampling rate would not matter to level discussions since it limits only the maximum frequency that can be properly sampled or reproduced. For the same bit depth a lower playback output level will yield a lower signal-to-noise or signal-to noise + distortion ratio, thus leading to the same effect of having a DAC of less resolution playing at full scale, so in a way you can say that for lower output levels you have less resolution. -- Mauro Santos