how much headphone amp is enough???

[hawk01]

after all the fiddling with level equalizing features, most especially the spotify feature, i notice a very subtle change which i would describe like there is now more meat to the bone analogy! so subtle in fact that if i did not listen to specific material at higher volume i would not have not given it much thought at all. more so that i expect something similar when i play back said material via my two channel stereo gear. i finally appreciate it is not my amp’s limitation if it is being fed material that is short on dynamic range on the get go. no amount of turning the volume knob will help!

 

[AnalogSteph]

If you want to preserve DR and sound quality, you should disable those first thing anyway

Nonsense. Playback volume normalization (I am not talking about dynamic compression) is one of the best uses of our present-day >16-bit capable hardware. Show me one recording with more than 90 dB of dynamic range, just one. (That's 15 bits.) Now what's the dynamic range on today's DACs and soundcards? At least 110 dB more often than not, even past 120. Don't you think we can afford like 10 dB of attenuation of loud material? There's still plenty of what they call footroom left. It's not even an issue for the very dynamic stuff, actually I've had to turn my pre-gain down by about -3.3 dB as some of it was being amplified beyond clipping (e.g. some '80s Vangelis comes to mind).

I have a collection of material ranging from the early days of the CD to the present day including the entirity of the loudness war, and I'm not going anywhere without my ReplayGain support. I can pick any track and never have to fear accidentially being blasted at full volume, even when going from a Mahler symphony to 2012-ish Depeche Mode. These things are part of why the loudness war finally sort of fizzled out as they became standard in streaming, one of the few glimmers of hope in dire times for high dynamic range recordings.

As for the OP's problem, I would inspect the EQ preset in PEACE carefully to see whether there is any massive boost dialed in that may have required pulling down the pre-gain correspondingly (and on all channels, too!). Also check whether there is any OS-level volume control for the DAC and what this is set to - should be at about 80%. Finally, a known no-frills audio player setup like using VLC or something for a change, just to establish a baseline and make sure there aren't any gremlins lurking in the configuration of what's normally being used.

Optionally, play test tones at a known digital level in said no-frills player and verify DAC analog output level with a multimeter. (Note: Cheaper models without true RMS capability may not be accurate beyond <1 kHz and are generally tweaked for 50-60 Hz mains, so choose tone generator frequency accordingly. The tone generator in Audacity is fine.)

 

[ninetylol]

80% DAC volume? Where do you get your numbers from.

Anyway volume normalization always got some loss of DR, and we are all here for the best audio. Id much rather be a perfectionist here, but each to his own.

 

[makinao]

"Loudness equalization" and "audio normalization" are dynamics processors. They automatically adjust the perceived loudness not just from song to song, but from soft and loud portions within a song. They will either reduce the loudness when the recording level is beyond a certain threshold, or increase it when it is below. It's possible that something in your playback chain in set to low, so your gain staging is out of whack.

I would suggest cutting out as many unnecessary stages as possible. Hunting down these dynamics processors in your chain and turning them off is a good first step. Another strategy is, if you're playing from spotify or youtube, bypass Foobar and Peace, and route it straight out to your dac. For that matter, try plugging in your headphones direct to your laptop and hear if the loudness level is greater direct. If it is, then something along the chain is reducing the loudness.

 

[hawk01]

as it is i always thought the dac volume setting is at 100% for the thing to function as a dac. as for the equalizer peace interface i just applied the numbers based on ASR PEQ list, double checked to confirm everytning is correct. if you deliberately increase the preamp value to get some gain, it decreases to a level to avod clipping as i have enabled this feature.

 

[Jimbob54]

@3125b on the other hand i think i may have chanced upon this feature in windows10. they call it “loudness equalization” so i need to disable this in order to preserve the DR? pardon my ignorance coz it is only now that i was made aware of these otherwise benign features to the layman user which does not bode well from an audio quality perspective.

Sounds like we are whittling down the options that may be impacting signal before the DAC and amp. Big question, are the "too quiet" tracks when you first posted now capable of being pumped out loud without cranking the L30 in high gain? The 5db pre amp will always cause you to crank quite a bit further on any amp dial than with no EQ.

I dont know Windows audio so dont know "loudness eq" in W10 but it cant hurt to disable / enable and test. It may or may not apply to USB connected DACs

EDIT- posted out of step with the thread- still sounds like progress is being made. @AnalogSteph makes interesting points about establishing a baseline and replay gain/ normalization. Yes , we are suggesting turning off such things to rule them out as causing the lack of volume. That doesnt mean turning them off results in a better experience with ones listening.

Quick question- if one has EQ software with auto adjustment (such is the case here with EAPO), this would presumably handle any illegal signals in the source in the same way replay gain does- having RG enabled would be doubling up on the digital clipping front?

 

[hawk01]

i actually did not have any major issues cranking up the too silent tracks on the L30 since my “expectation“ of this material does not warrant me to turn up the volume. unlike my “expectation” of the more familiar dynamic tracks which i felt are too lean hence i crank the volume. i emphasize expectation in this regard comparing headphone performance to that of my two channel stereo gear which can deliver a ton of dynamics at modestly high volume settings with headroom to spare. guess i am expecting or demanding too much out of the headphones to deliver equally as the revel speakers.

subjectively the elimination of the possible culprits sapping the DR from the material may have done some good. most noteworthy is that of spotify which was the root of all this inquiry. on the particular track included with this post i am now able to play at much lower volume level than 3o’clock at high gain with more decent dynamics. i suppose something did change in a very subtle manner.

 

[Tup3x]

If you have a microphone enabled & connected it might be a good idea to do this:

Sometimes that can mess up the volume depending on the use case.

 

[hawk01]

no microphones in the loop.