Volume

[ciphergoth]

Between the MP3 file and the speakers there are no fewer than seven different volume controls. One is on the MP3 application itself. Two in the Linux kernel, "master" and "PCM". Then it comes out of the sound card and into Kitty's mixer, where it goes past a "gain" dial, a level slider and a crossfader. Finally the amplifier which feeds the speakers has a standard issue dial on the front.

Many of them don't like being right at the top; you have to push them up until it sounds nasty. I get that "all life is misdesigned" feeling.

I have a note in my brain to quote purplerabbits as saying "You wouldn't want an off-centre badger spinning mechanism!". I have no idea why now, but anyway, there's an item off my TODO list.

Comments

[vampwillow]

When I used to teach Sound Engineering (for Live Music, Theatre, Recording and Radio!) I used to recommend that people started at around the 70% mark on each fader. Strictly speaking all faders at full should be fine so long as the original signal doesn't over-mod (which for an MP3 or WAV means getting hard limited at 100%) but each stage can raise the level again so can over-mod the imput of the next stage. Thus best value - given that faders are logaritmic not linear - is around 1/sqr(2) ie. 70.7%, as this should give an output level roughly that of the input and hence not add distortion other than that introduced by the electronic components within that mixer/amp stage.
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