[xnor]

It depends on how much you want to attenuate digitally and also your setup. Guess it's obvious that it doesn't make sense to crank your interface/speakers up but then attenuate a lot digitally to reach a comfortable level.

 

[Roller]

That's what I'm saying. The best results come from having zero, or near zero, digital attenuation, and adjusting volume through analog controls alone, IMHO.

 

[xnor]

Analog controls also add noise, can cause channel imbalance (this doesn't happen with digital) and are far from 'lossless'.
 
It's not like an analog volume control 'tells' the amp to amplify the signal less or more, but usually the amplification factor (= gain) is fixed and the analog volume control attenuates the signal before it's amplified again.
Ever heard noise or channel imbalance coming from a pot? 

 And from a digital volume control? 

 

[Roller]

Fair enough. With dedicated hardware available with both digital and analog volume controls, which do you prefer? And no, a computer doesn't fall in the equation for the purpose of the question.

 

[JoetheArachnid]

A knob with a smooth action will always feel better.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

Fair enough. With dedicated hardware available with both digital and analog volume controls, which do you prefer? And no, a computer doesn't fall in the equation for the purpose of the question.

This is the computer audio forum, right? Anyway, many if not most portable players have a digital one. There are also very high-end DACs with digital volume controls, like the Alpha DAC (~ $5000).
 
Quote:

A knob with a smooth action will always feel better.

Yeah I remember my old stereo which had a really (unrealistically) smooth volume knob - it controlled the volume digitally. 

 

[Roller]

So, which do you prefer? And why?

 

[miku39]

I too, would like to know the cons of digital attenuation.
I thought that digital attenuation on the digital side before the DAC stage is the best one.
I mean it is easy to make the attenuation to retain all the resolution of the data.
One just have to scale the data before attenuating, lets say 16 bit to 24 bit, then one can attenuate to 2^8 steps without losing any resolution (to rounding error).

 

[xnor]

I use both. Though when I'm on the computer I tend to control the volume with my keyboard only (therefore digitally). Most of the time my volume adjustments are within a small range so this approach works imo very well. Definitely prefer this to taking my hands off the keyboard to fiddle with a pot.
I also use the keyboard to control my player (which is minimized most of the time).

 

[xnor]

Quote:

One just have to scale the data before attenuating, lets say 16 bit to 24 bit, then one can attenuate to 2^8 steps without losing any resolution (to rounding error).

In practice the player (e.g. foobar2000) decodes your music directly into 32-bit floating point samples, attenuates them (or leaves this job to the Windows Mixer), and then you can choose to output the result as 24-bit samples (if your DAC supports that). If the input files were 16-bit then, as you said, you basically have 8 bits or 7 (+ 1 bit dithering) of 'digital attenuation headroom'. 8 bits are about -48 dB attenuation.

 

[Amatsu]

Quote:

I use both. Though when I'm on the computer I tend to control the volume with my keyboard only (therefore digitally). Most of the time my volume adjustments are within a small range so this approach works imo very well. Definitely prefer this to taking my hands off the keyboard to fiddle with a pot.
I also use the keyboard to control my player (which is minimized most of the time).

I prefer that too, it's very comfortable adjusting the volume with the keyboard and besides I don't think I would notice any difference between adjusting the volume on the amp or on Windows.

 

[Roller]

Still, nothing beats the fine grain adjustments of analog. By far.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

Still, nothing beats the fine grain adjustments of analog. By far.

 
Foobar2000 Preferences - Advanced - Playback - Volume step (dB): here you can enter any value, for example something ridiculous like 0.01 dB.
 
The Windows Mixer also can be controlled to change the overall system volume in smaller steps, for example with an AutoHotkey script.
(technical side note: the steps can be about 20*log10((2^16-1)/2^16) = 0.00013 dB small)
 
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

 
Foobar2000 Preferences - Advanced - Playback - Volume step (dB): here you can enter any value, for example something ridiculous like 0.01 dB.
 
The Windows Mixer also can be controlled to change the overall system volume in smaller steps, for example with an AutoHotkey script.
(technical side note: the steps can be about 20*log10((2^16-1)/2^16) = 0.00013 dB small)
 
 

It's not just about the value adjustments, but the manual control itself. And no, a mouse, or touch surface is nothing compared to a pot.

 

[geremy]

Pots suck for the most part, even Blue Velvets.  I can always hear the channel imbalance and it pisses me off.  That's why on the M^3 I built I used relays that control matched resistors for volume control, and that is also why the new mobile amps don't use analog pots anymore.  Really they aren't a very good solution for volume control.