Apogee Duet in the red

[indysmith]

I've heard it's best to have your iTunes volume on full. If i do that my Duet's LED array lights up right into the red zone... What shall I do?

 

[grawk]

Listen to songs that aren't mastered so loud. That red light just means the track is almost at 0db. If you're not recording, you can safely ignore it.

 

[indysmith]

But what I mean is; Am I going to have higher quality setting iTunes to full and having the Duet in the red, or turning iTunes down a little and not going into the red?
I can't distinguish any clear difference, so it must be quite a subtle effect, but I'd like to feel secure that I'm getting the best quality audio possible using the software and hardware I have

 

[grawk]

full volume in itunes (which is really just full volume in the duet), control the volume with your amp. The red light doesn't indicate a problem you can control, turning it down will just be brick walling at a lower volume.

 

[Tantra]

The red light is there for a reason. If you can hear distortion when Duet goes red just turn down the input a tad to get undistorted playback. That applies to all software sources used.

 

[grawk]

The red light is there for recording. If the red light goes on, the fault is in the recording. The amp was more than enough headroom for anything you can send to it digitally. If you turn it down, it'll just sound like quieter crap.

 

[Tantra]

Well, you may be perfectly right on the matter, but I guess the meter measures what's going on in the analog domain? That would mean that they measure what's going to the converters. If the Mac could never go past 0dB on the output in the digital domain your statement should be valid. So you are saying it is impossible for the Mac to output a signal beyond 0dB in the digital domain?

 

[grawk]

You guess incorrectly. The meter says how close to 0db you are. It's purely in the digital domain. And NOTHING can go louder than 0db digitally. Because you know, that means all the bits are full.

It IS possible to screw it up, if you go into the settings ,and turn the output above 0db. But you have to actively try to do that.