The content of the signal doesn't matter. A voltage is a voltage. But in any case, the way most modern popular music is compressed to death, it is close to playing full-level white noise anyway
When I listen to my 24 bit vinyl rips like for example Fleetwood Mac Rumors, or Supertramp Crime of the Century, it's not outputting the same levels as if I'm listening to something like Slayer Reign in Blood mastered with low quality 80's digital gear. Now with the Slayer yes I'm probably capable of driving the amps to clipping with this DAC. But since I listen to a wide verity of music recorded at different levels and not just Slayer, having the extra gain available to boost the levels to what I like to listen at sometimes is nice. Sure I can try to overdrive it in the software but to me it seems to degrade the quality. A simple solution to this problem is to have 4+ volts available on tap from your source to compensate. If you have a better way to accomplish this let me know.
Ah! OK, sure, if you have recorded your vinyl at levels much lower than the maximum you probably need extra gain to compensate. In effect you have lower gain (attenuation) earlier in the reproduction chain, so that the actual signal never gets up to even 2V, despite what the theoretical output spec of your DAC is assuming a full-volume signal.
For others, with a more conventional gain structure, it is best to have the gain set so that a 100% modulation at full volume doesn't exceed 2V. Definitely no *need* to exceed 2 V.
I was just using those as a example. I also have several 24 bit DVD audio recordings as well as Flac 16 bit which are recorded at a low level as well. I have thousands of high quality albums in my collection. Studio recordings are not all recorded at the same level. I disagree that 2v output is enough to satisfy the average music listening crowd that likes high volume levels, unless they have very efficient speakers. Once again I will say the the 4.5v that the perfectwave put out was perfect for these amps. Your ears will let you know when the amps are being strained.
You have no way of knowing if you are actually driving your amps with 4.5V or not if you don't measure it.
Once again I will say that 2 V is enough to drive the nCore to full specified output power (at 1% THD), anything beyond that is driving the amp into clipping.
Yes I agree for those whose musical preference is white noise, 2v should meet their needs. But then there is people who listen to real world recordings whose opinion may differ. You are not going to get a steady 2v output from a DAC or preamp that is rated for 2v when listening to music. It's going to be up and down and the peak output is going to be limited to the level the music was recorded at in the studio. That's all I have to add to this discussion. My real world testing with my ears has given me all the info I require on the subject.
No, and you wouldn't want the steady 1% THD resulting from a 2 V steady signal either. Well, actually, it wouldn't be steady, as the nC400 wouldn't be able to keep up with continuously providing the full rated power.
The nice thing about digital sources, unlike analog, is that you know, absolutely, what the peak level will be. Full amplitude is full amplitude. No way to go to 11. That full amplitude is very easy to verify and measure, and the gain structure can be adjusted based on that.
Indeed. A professionally recorded digital recording is usually normalized so that the highest peak is just below the maximum amplitude allowed by the digital coding. You want to adjust the gain structure so that that peak level doesn't make the amp clip. For the nCore that level is 2 V RMS.
Fair enough - just wanted to clarify the issue to people who might be mislead by your statement saying "Just make sure your source has at least 4v of gain unless you only listen at lower levels" (and that shows confusion between gain and voltage - there is no such thing as "4V of gain").
Let's say I measure the output and verify that it indeed measures 2v. And when I listen to one digital recording turned all the way up to maximum, then listen to another turned up to maximum, one is twice as loud as the other. If I want to listen to both of the recordings at the same level, how can I achieve this without having more voltage available? BTW I have 5 different copies of the same albums mastered at different studios and they all are recorded at different levels. I prefer the sound on some of the quietest ones but can't play them at the SPL levels I desire. Only answer I can think of is your SOL unless you have more voltage available.
What I meant is 4V of output
Sorry I don't have this multi quote figured out
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And lets say the louder of the 2 is playing crystal clear with no distortion or clipping. Now if I had more voltage available and turned the quieter recording up to play at the same SPL levels as the louder one, The amp will be clipping like crazy and perhaps the overload protection will kick in?
You don't need (or want) more *voltage*. You might want more *gain*. And that is best done at your source, or in the digital domain. You might want to look into ReplayGain.
Independent of what your gain is, you still want to make sure your absolute maximum amplitude (voltage) never exceeds 2V.
That was the whole point of my "full amplitude is full amplitude" statement. A digital format has a very clearly defined maximum amplitude and dynamic range. You know that there will never be anything louder than "from 0 to 65535" (or "from -32768 to 32767") in the case of 16-bit recordings. As long as you make sure that signal won't exceed 2V on the input to the nc400, you know you won't get clipping, whatever happens.
If you have recordings that don't use the full dynamic range, and you are not happy with their level, then you should amplify it in the digital domain.
The idea is to map the dynamic range of your digital media one-to-one to the dynamic range of your amp and speakers, so that with a maximum amplitude digital signal, you are still below clipping in your amp and speaker.
Is replaygain compatible with all formats and bit rates with no detrimental effects on sound quality what so ever? I know Jriver has something similar built in but I've never tried it fearing it wasn't a feature for critical high end music listening.
I guess I'm confused but as you turn the volume knob up on a DAC with a volume control, or a preamp, which decreases the attenuation, wouldn't you be increasing the voltage and gain at the same time? Then once you can hear with your ears that your at your system's comfortable maximum just back it off a notch. At that point you can assume the ncores are at their clipping point and receiving a true 2v from the recording. But in order to achieve this with lower level recordings a higher output DAC or preamp would be required, or something like replaygain will need to be used in the software? To me it seems like either method would achieve the same goal.
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Depends on the implementation, and your DAC. It is compatible with all the popular formats, but requires pre-scanning the music to determine the loudness level. ReplayGain just calculates a gain correction factor - essentially the volume knob setting to make each track or album conform to a reference loudness level. The "turning of the knob" can happen in Jriver, or in your DAC, and can be analog or digital depending on your DAC.
As to the effects on sound quality, the only one who can decide that is you - I would suggest you do some critical blind listening to see if you hear a difference, but matching the volume exactly (to make a listening comparison meaningful) is a bit tricky when the volume adjustment is the very thing you are testing...
You would be increasing the gain, and thus also the amplitude, but the absolute value of the amplitude (in volts) depends on your signal.
Yes. Most of us accept that quieter recordings play quieter. If you want to be able to play quieter recordings as loud as the really loud ones, you either need to do gain adjustment in the software or DAC, or accept the risk that a sudden loud passage can drive your amp into clipping and in worst case blow out your tweeter.
This is diyAudio after all, so everyone is free to do what they want with their gear, but I just prefer it to be an informed decision.
This is the method I've been using for years. I guess I've blown a few tweeters but alcohol was probably the biggest contributing factor to that. I now realize my DAC does output enough voltage to drive my amps to maximum, but only if the recording is mastered using all of the available dynamic range. So I need to either do things the safe way and boost the output digitally, or the old fashion more risky method of cranking the volume up on a higher voltage preamp or DAC. Hopefully this clarifies some questions for other readers as well. Thanks for the info.
Been there, done that!
Worst one was a party (long ago) where we kept blowing the protection fuse, so I "repaired" it with tinfoil to allow us to play louder...
Been there, done that!
Worst one was a party (long ago) where we kept blowing the protection fuse, so I "repaired" it with tinfoil to allow us to play louder...
I've made that repair before to my dads set of klipschorns when I was a teenager! I think the foil is still in them come to think about it.
With your dads knowledge, or without?
If we were real audiophiles, I guess we should start arguing about the sonic properties of different kinds of tinfoil...
With your dads knowledge, or without?
If we were real audiophiles, I guess we should start arguing about the sonic properties of different kinds of tinfoil...
Oh no he would of killed me if he knew! Ya I can imagine that the tinfoil degraded the sound slightly, but at the time we were out of fuses and maximum SPL's were the primary objective.
As far as the contacts are not degraded, i think the contrary: As the impedance of the tinfoil is lower than the fuse's one, it is more linear with temperature.
But i wonder: klipschorns are pretty efficient, don't they ? I wonder the volume to blow a fuse.
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