[griffindy]

Hi all;
 
   so after reading a lot about the Little Dot I+ and how it works very well with Grados (I have a pair of SR80i's) and it sounds fantastic. The only problem that I have so far is that it seems to be pretty loud. I'm listening to it right now and the knob is around 10 (out of 100). I opened her up and made sure it was set to the low gain setting. I listen mostly out of iTunes (set to the top volume) and VLC for the few lossless tracks I have (at 100% volume) and VLC seems a little quieter. From my computer the audio goes to a StyleAudio Carat-Emerald and then to the Little Dot. I was thinking about purchasing a pair of attenuators unless someone can see something wrong in my setup that I can't. thanks!

 

[Impulsive]

easy discoverable solution & problem.
I just wonder why you keep pushing your music player at 100% volume if you have low impedance headphones & moreover amp.
At 100% volume audio output might not be so good because you are maxing it.
just lower volume on music player at, lets say 50% and fill the missing volume with amp.
 

 

[john57]

Or you can use the StyleAudio Carat-Emerald  volume control and see if it will control the RCA outputs to the little Dot as one of the better options if possible with your setup.The volume control on the StyleAudio Carat-Emerald  should be working in the analog domain not in the digtal domain.

 

[griffindy]

 
Quote:

easy discoverable solution & problem.
I just wonder why you keep pushing your music player at 100% volume if you have low impedance headphones & moreover amp.
At 100% volume audio output might not be so good because you are maxing it.
just lower volume on music player at, lets say 50% and fill the missing volume with amp.
 

sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one...however, I thought I had heard that lowering the volume degrades the sound quality (though for the life of me I can't remember where), which is why my computer volume was set all the way up.
 


Quote:

Or you can use the StyleAudio Carat-Emerald  volume control and see if it will control the RCA outputs to the little Dot as one of the better options if possible with your setup.The volumen control on the StyleAudio Carat-Emerald  should be working in the analog domain not in the digtal domain.

unfortunately the volume only works if the carat-emerald is set to 'headphones', otherwise its just a line out in the back.
 
in any case, I've tried lowering the volume on my various players and this has given me more play on the volume knob with the LD I+, so I guess I'll just stick with that, thanks a lot guys!
 

 

[RyokoZekem]

I've found in my personal experience that its much better to let the Little Dot I+ do as much of the amplification of the signal as possible because it does such a good job at it with good tubes and a good opamp. So yeah like others said, just drop the source volume, and let the Little Dot do the amplification. Amplification colors sound and chances are you'll like the amplification from the Little Dot more.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  easy discoverable solution & problem.
I just wonder why you keep pushing your music player at 100% volume if you have low impedance headphones & moreover amp.
At 100% volume audio output might not be so good because you are maxing it.
just lower volume on music player at, lets say 50% and fill the missing volume with amp.
 

 
What he has maxed out is the digital audio level on iTunes. Pretty much everybody else on iTunes, Foobar, MediaMonkey, etc does that along with 100% Windows/OSx volume control unless they're running an analog signal out of the computer's motherboard or soundcard into an amp.