[supra1988t]

I have been using an iBasso D10 Cobra as a USB DAC and recently discovered my computer has an optical audio out and have heard that optical is almost always > USB.  When hooked up this way I do notice it sounds "airy'er" with more separation around the instruments however I am having major volume fluctuation issues.  When a song gets more complex or more instruments join in it seems the volume of each instrument drops as to keep the overall volume level the same.  This is kind of hard to explain.  For example, say a track starts with an acoustic guitar opening before the whole band kicks in at once.  Normally the track gets louder when the band kicks in but now its like the all of the instruments are toned down so the track does NOT get louder.  Its like a complete loss of dynamics.  I have played with the resolution settings in the Realtek HD Audio manager to no avail.
 
Any suggestions?

 

[supra1988t]

ANY suggestions?

 

[ProtegeManiac]

If you have a USB charger hook it up and toggle between charging 'on' and 'off' while using the SPDIF input to isolate if this might have anything to do with it getting power through USB. If you've always used it with the charging function switched on, and have been using it too long at times and for a long enough period of time, heat might have damaged the battery.

 

[obobskivich]

ANY suggestions?

Sounds like you're describing "volume management" or the function of a dynamic compressor. I know Asus and Creative have this feature in their drivers/hardware and it normally enables by default (it actually does serve a purpose - movies and other cinematic programming usually benefits from this compression to prevent "huge volume spikes" in material). Does the Realtek system have any mention of that? Or your DAC?

Alternately, does your media player have this enabled? (Windows Media Player has SRS including smart volume; for example).

Finally, what kind of speaker/output setup did you select in Windows/the Realtek setup while feeding this digital out?

 

[supra1988t]

Quote:

Sounds like you're describing "volume management" or the function of a dynamic compressor. I know Asus and Creative have this feature in their drivers/hardware and it normally enables by default (it actually does serve a purpose - movies and other cinematic programming usually benefits from this compression to prevent "huge volume spikes" in material). Does the Realtek system have any mention of that? Or your DAC?
Alternately, does your media player have this enabled? (Windows Media Player has SRS including smart volume; for example).
Finally, what kind of speaker/output setup did you select in Windows/the Realtek setup while feeding this digital out?

Thank you both for your responses but this^^ was the solution.  I don't know how I missed the "Loudness Equalization" checkbox the first 8 times.    What a silly feature!
 
Thanks again!!!

 

[obobskivich]

Thank you both for your responses but this^^ was the solution.  I don't know how I missed the "Loudness Equalization" checkbox the first 8 times.    What a silly feature!

Thanks again!!!

Glad to help.

Just remember that "Loudness Equalization" feature the next time you go to watch a DVD or Blu-ray and the dialog is hard to hear; it might be just what you need.