Pc volume max, control with speakers

>pc volume max, control with speakers
>speaker volume max, control with pc
which one?

How about neither you dumb cunt.

Manually adjust PC and speaker volume until you find the optimal combination.

Half and half.

Game/app max, Pc volume max
I Control it with Speakers/headphones

So you get that 100% quality

i set the speakers to ~50% and control with my computer. my speakers could get insanely loud for my needs, and i really don't need the max on my computer to deafen me and upset my neighbors.

and no i have no idea why they're that loud. they're not even that powerful. maybe i just have sensitive hearing. i dunno.

speakers at 30%, control volume with keyboard

It's easier to take away than it is to add.

So by that logic, why would you want to send a weak signal from your computer and force your amplifier to boost it for you? It makes much more sense to send out the max signal, then cut the signal with the amplifier.

Integrated speakers

PC at max always so your output is always at max so you can get the best possible signal then you can cut it down with the external Amp.

i feel like if you're hyper-concerned with signal fidelity at this level then you're probably not going to use a 3.5mm jack from your computer anyway.

for regular people the differences are pretty much inconsequential except for ease of turning up or down the volume.

set pc output to higher but not max, maybe 50-75% as a reference, control volume using speakers, if you need more volume bump pc up before the speakers go to max

if your pc output is too low the speakers be amplifying a lot of noise

don't put either end on max because it will sound like shit but if you do want near max put them both on 90% odd

I'm not I'm using a fiberoptic cable for my audio

What's the name of this cute girl?

But my point is, by controlling the audio through your computer, it's the same as taking a picture, and trying to make it bigger in microsoft paint

PC volume max, speakers up until it's just a little too loud. Then control with PC only.

100% PC.
Filter/clear with DAC.
Regule with AMP.

Why are you even asking? PC control is just when you don't have an AMP/DAC.

Speaker volume at lowest, app volume at 10-20%, bump up speaker volume until it sounds right.

50% on my speakers and 20-50% in system settings. werks for me

PC volume at 70.
Set speaker volume with knob.

Ninomiya Rui

That is not a girl.

yes it is, she's a cute girl (male)

Both, depending on where I'm at. There's a volume knob on my keyboard, so I'll use that while at my PC.

If I'm on the couch, I'll control the speaker volume with a remote.

look how autistic this board is

No gainstage should be at max routinely except of a particular application's own volume control. Set system master volume to about half and then the amp volume accordingly so that it is comfortable (neither to loud nor too quiet). Then use master system volume to make global adjustments.

Wrong. You should avoid changing the amp's gain whenever possible. See .

This. Adjust speaker volume only if you run out of PC volume headroom (but if you do, your speaker volume lever probably was not optimal to begin with).

Whatever the Fuck you want why are you making a thread about this?

I use headphones.

only person that actually is not retard

is the case same for dac amp combos using coax?

Audio engineer here.

Every chain in your signal flow creates noise to some degree, but with modern consumer gear it's pretty negligible at low levels. The exception is if it's a digital signal, like Optical Digital, sent through USB, etc. But even then there is a little distortion (jargon: THD+N). Nothing is perfect, period.

That being said, the amp will probably be the noisiest part of the chain. The "hiss" you hear when you crank the gain is called the noise floor, so when you turn your amp up, you bring your computer audio - AND the noise floor - up in volume.

So, to keep noise floor down and your signal clean, keep your amp down as low as possible and your source as high as possible. I run my amp at about 10-15% for comfortable listening levels. If you're using modern consumer gear though, you shouldn't be running into issues unless you're cranking your gain 60%+ like an idiot.

Look up "signal to noise ratio" on google for more info.

who is this semen demon?

This is how I organized my volume:

1. Set my DAC output volume to almost max (-0.5 dB gain)
2. Use software/application volume controls *ONLY* to normalize differences in volume level between applications
3. Use the amplifier knob to adjust the overall volume level for current preference and time of day.

This way, I'm using application volume controls mostly to control things like too-loud games or videos, and I'm using global volume controls to adjust for how loud I want things to be in general right now.

DAC output is always at 100% because the amplifier noise is the bottleneck in the system, so you want as much dynamic range out of the DAC as possible.

>optical sent through USB
stick to audio engineering

Tough decision, the best is both

PC volume is at speakers volume and when you turn to max it is set on max on speaker

>DAC output is always at 100% because the amplifier noise is the bottleneck in the system, so you want as much dynamic range out of the DAC as possible.
Forgot to mention, this is also the reason why I'm using the hardware knob to control overall volume instead of using the software master volume controls. More dynamic range

So to answer OP's specific question, I would do the former (pc volume max, control with speakers) excepting of course that I use software to normalize volume levels across applications.

>Audio engineer
lmao

you're an engineer just how a janitor is a sanitation engineer.

I should follow up, I have a 120 watt amp, and I keep my amp's gain at around 20-25% for normal listening levels. 40% is the point when I start to even remotely hear any hiss at all. So, I have my computer audio at ~80 because my amp is out of comfortable reach, and software volume adjustment is just more convenient. I have a USB sound card because I don't trust any mobo's audio card AT ALL.

This is my full time job and I hold a degree in it. If you're gonna criticize and have a problem with me, that's just it - it's your problem. Thanks for contributing.

I never use my speakers, they're basically an extension cable for my headphones at this point.

on a warm summer day my ears get sweaty wearing headphones, even with AKGs or Senns and their open back design, they still dont breath enough for my ears.

I have 4 volumes (for music)

>musicbee
>pc
>audio interface
>amp

I usually keep mb, pc and ai on max, though I will reduce musicbee at night sometimes when amp control is not enough. most volume control is done with the amp.

you 'lose' more of the sound when adjusting digitally. same reason why you should turn off the volume normalisation in your music player. this way you get "all" of the music as it should be heard, but just adjusted by how loud the speakers are, rather than losing some of your source before it reaches the speakers. sounds like nonsense but it's what I've found with my audio setup.

Excuse me sir, my job title is artisanal audio sculpting engineer. I focus on sound textures, slowly pulling away frequences through many iterations for that best result.

First

please don't start this, go back to youtube comments section if your going to be like that
your not even close to first post anyway

100 percent computer, manual on speakers

Everything PC 100%
manually adjust with speaker volume knob

it's just easier

Control with speakers

Source volume at 90% to prevent clipping.
Then adjust speakers.

>tfw nobody here has ever live mixed sound before

What's clipping?

I don't think you know enough about clipping, thinking a volume slider is going to solve it.

I'm pretty sure he meanas clipping in your DAC/amplifier which is a real problem especially with lower-grade hardware.

Something like an ODAC almost surely won't clip even at -0 dBFS, but I wouldn't trust your onboard sound chip to the same standards.

If he's going to act like a hoighty toighty sound engineer, then he should talk like one.
I'm guessing he can't because he isn't.

Oh also clipping in your software stack, e.g. resampling before output

100% volume from the OS, because I'm pretty sure on Win10 thasts just the RAW unaltered audio.

Then let whatever amp-dac's manage the volume. I don't want no software interference.

As long as the source volume isn't above 100% there won't be clipping (assuming your digital source wasn't clipping in the first place).

Digital gain = as high as possible without clipping. Should be 100% if your source was mastered well.
Then you adjust analog gain/amp as needed.

Real-life DACs and software both clip near 100% volume, and it also messes with a bunch of other things (e.g. mixing multiple streams together, resampling, converting between floating point and integer, dithering, loudness normalization and more fun stuff)

In general, you should always leave some margins even for digital signals, simply because it makes signal processing a whole lot easier when you have more margins to safely play with. Same is true for both digital and analog.

He's referring to two different things, you dunce.
He's referring to the fact that both optical TOSLINK and plain USB can be used to carry digital audio (among other standards) - not that you can have optical via USB.

lrn2english

>and software
That's not how digital audio works
>and it also messes with a bunch of other things (e.g. mixing multiple streams together, resampling, converting between floating point and integer, dithering, loudness normalization and more fun stuff)
Most people don't remix their digital audio while it's leaving their music player. Sure, when you're mixing/mastering, give yourself that headroom, but as an end user I don't need it.

That's not what the wording implied.

>That's not how digital audio works
What do you think control digital audio, then, if not software? Magic pixie dust?

>Most people don't remix their digital audio while it's leaving their music player.
Actually I'm very confident that most people do, simply because every major OS' audio stack does resampling, dithering and mixing on the fly.

Unless you're using WASAPI with exclusive mode, which is basically something that only dumb audiophiles do, you're getting extra DSP on top of your PCM output.

Pc volume max, reducing digital volume affects the bitrate

is this the new anime thread?

Digital always max, control analog.

control this
*teleports behind you*

Speaker volume is an analog dial (cheap powered Logitech speakers over 3.5mm).

I keep my PC volume usually around 70% so that turning the dial on the speaker is more precise. Turning the speakers up to 10% us usually a comfy, room filling volume. Around 35-40% you can hear it two floors up with no distortion.

>PC volume max
>Speakers volume max
>Control with ear-damage deafness
it just works.

Bad digital/analog equipment can't handle low gain signals (or high gain for that matter) so more often than enough you're better off with your pc set to about 80% volume with volume being controlled on your analog speakers.

pc 100% control speakers. That way you dont get fucked by screamers on /gif/

This can't be overstated enough

Many consumer DACs will clip on 0 dBFS signals. Even “audiophile” bullshit. Especially “audiophile” bullshit.

Even if it's well-designed, it will usually distort a 0 dBFS signal more than one that's slightly below full scale (even -1 dBFS).

I use loudness normalization for watching videos off the internet, so I often don't even realize something was supposed to be a “surprise sound” because it sounds just as loud as what was before it.

I use a systemwide equalizer with a normalizer/peak limiter as well

Bassy youtube and porn videos. mmmm..

How do you have it set up system-wide? LADSPA? Are you using PulseAudio or ALSA for this?

I would love to be able to get EBU R128 normalization system-wide, but I can't find any implementation of it as a plugin, except in libavfilter (which is how I use it, with af=loudnorm in my mpv config).

I also would love the ability to toggle it on or off on a by-stream basis; since I really don't need nor want it affecting my music, but I would love it for stuff like voice chat or games

I'm using Mac OS X, it has this almost completely built in. Only SoundFlower acting as a rerouting sound device is needed additionally.

on my desktop with cheap logitech speakers I leave the PC master volume at 75 percent and just use the knob on the speakers

generally speaking you don't want PC volume to be low otherwise noise will be overstated, and you don't want it to be too high because it could distort or overdrive the speakers

I don't think it matters too much that's just my way of looking at it

Ah, okay. One of the things I found with normalization solutions is that they all have various trade-offs and issues, like window sizes, noise overamplification and bad weighting.

Basically, if you make your window too small, you kill dynamic range - basically what compression does to your audio; but on the other hand if you make your window too large, you react strangely to sudden volume changes (e.g. applying the volume change way too soon, or failing to react in time). They also introduce signal latency which might be very noticeable in stuff like games and voice chat, now that I think about it.

Another issue is where when you have stretches of silence or near-silence, they will get amplified to an incredibly loud hiss or rumbling, even though it should technically be silent.

Finally, they tend to react very poorly to mixtures of frequencies, like not considering the fact that different frequencies are perceived with both different loudness and “annoyingness” factors, or reacting poorly to something like bassy songs (where it will make the rest of the spectrum way too quiet just because bass started playing).

EBU R128 does a very good job of solving all of these considerations (like using an a-weighted FFT instead of RMS, using a long window while still explicitly detecting and separating sudden signal transitions, discarding/bypassing bass and detecting silent regions to prevent overamplificating noise), whereas everything else I have tested seems to suck.

I wonder what OS X uses under the hood for this, but it would be fascinating to find out.

That is a true issue, indeed. I constantly play around with the controls, e.g. when genreswitching or switching output devices.
I don't know what algorithm is actually used or how it is designed, but I'm pretty happy with it.
Pic related is how it looks like in the graphical version (values can be set manually as well). The higher the yellow dot is placed, the higher the volume has to be for it to limit and the longer the timerange seems to be. The lower the right grey dot is placed (e.g. chaging the steepness of the curve), the harder it cuts off.

I originally added that filter only to get more bass that doesn't clip. You know how it is, after a day of finding the "sweet spot" suddenly a song comes up that clips like a retard.

The only thing I really miss from Linux and Windows (used both roughly 2 years each), is the ability to give every application their own volume, but Apple seems to be more concerned in how to push users to iOS and Mac App Store at the moment.

Use headphones as speakers, control with USB sound card