How loud is to loud?

[Sniper82]

On my Logitech Z560s with a Santa Cruz how loud is to loud? When I turn my volume up over half way the sub acts as if it wants to jump out its case. I am afraid of blowing the sub. What are the best setting in Santa Cruz control panel?

 

[John]

The best settings are subjective. Adjust it to what suits your ears.

 

[BennyD]

generally you want to keep the sc volume low probaly 50% or lower and turn the speaker volume up.
this is because high output from soundcards can cause distortion and has been known to actually blow the 560's internal amp.

 

[paralazarguer]

The lower your volume meter in windows, the lower your bit sampling will be. For example, if you're recording or outputting 24bits of audio and only have your volume meter in windows at half, you will only be inputting/outputtin 12bits. bits represents the number of steps between the highest and lowest value. Always leave your windows volume at maximum for best sound quality. You can turn the Bass down on the back of the sub.

 

[Erasmus-X]

FlorianRed:

What the hell are you talking about? The Windows volume control has absolutely no bearing on bit sampling rate. It adjusts gain (this is measured in dB). Generally, turning the gain level up too high causes distortion, which can easily blow speakers if you are not careful. It's been my experience that you almost always get better sound quality by keeping the master volume set at 50% or less and using the volume control on your speakers instead.

Bit sampling is something totally different and is typically adjusted within the sound card's drivers.

 

[Yobbo]

Yeah, keeping your computer volume at around 50% seems to be the best option around.

I have mine set like that and have as much volume i want and never feel like i will blow my speakers (logitech z340s)

 

[paralazarguer]

Bit sampling is something totally different and is typically adjusted within the sound card's drivers.

If I knew how to make the rolling eyes emoticon I would. I'm aware that bitsampling is handled through the ASIO controls before recording. However, if, in Cubase for example, you change the volume on individual channels you will begin to lose bits. I am a sound engineer and can tell you that having a high volume is best. Of course, you don't want to output that to "multimedia speakers" which will never give you a flat frequency response (I know you think they sound great - they don't.) Ideally, you would want to use a line level output to maintain your complete sampling or output rate to a proper tuner which would then use analogue gain. Computers don't do this. They use a digital gain (bits.)

 

[WarCon]

Are you trying to say the 24bit DAC's (most use to be 16bit though) on the sound card are going to suddenly start converting at 12bit or are you trying to explain loss due to magnitude change in a digital signal either due to compression or volumetric subtration? Yes there is loss of signal quality at lower volumes unlike analog where the lower strength signal can be converted back without loss (theoretically, not in practice).

But full digital signal (i.e. full volume) may still overdrive the output analog amp and create distortion. We are talking about less than $100 sound cards not $2000 DAT tape players.

It is still 24bit DAC though even though there has been a magnitude decrease. It doesn't drop a whole bit of magnitude to lower the volume though. That would be absurd.

..............edit...............
I believe this is why most audiophiles prefer records to any level of digital recording, because of the percieved loss of signal quality. I suppose somewhere in our untapped abilities some people might be able to hear the difference (most likely they just miss the added noise of the analog systems).