Volume on Device or Amp?

[Witterings]

If you're relaying a phone to say bluetooth or streaming from a device like chromecast or wiim mini ....... are you better off increasing the device;s outut to max volume and using the amp at lower settings ... OR ... setting the device to a lower level and icreasing the Amps volume to get a better less distorted sound??

 

[Talisman]

I think the best solution is to increase the volume of the source to the maximum and then manage the power with the amplifier, this inevitably improves the signal to noise ratio. for convenience, however, I sometimes increase the volume from the amplifier and manage everything from the device.

 

[pjug]

I like having a preamp with much better SNR than the power amp (in my case about 20dB better). Then it doesn't matter much. When I really care I turn the preamp volume to max to assure proper balance and control the volume at the source.

 

[Tom C]

I like to put the software volume on the phone at about 75% or about -12db. Then volume control on power amp somewhere between 50% and 75%, depending on how it is made. I have volume knob on DAC that I use to actually vary the playing volume. DAC is fed directly into power amp or powered speakers. This way the sound is the cleanest, and I can turn it way up.

 

[Witterings]

Cheers to all ... that's at least given me a guide to work by .... I do like having a bit a bit of volume control on the device I have nearest i.e. phone / tablet but the other night I was streaming at really low volume and the sound was quite muffled.
The next door neighbour said crank the streamer to full so the amp's doing less work .... I wondered if maybe because the device's volume was quite high the amp's volume was low and it wasn't putting out enough to drive the speakers at low volume.

 

[Tom C]

Level matching is a bit of an art. You need it to be high enough, but not too much, at every stage.

 

[jasonhanjk]

It depends.

If you have a good dac and an amp that uses pot for volume control, it's better to control volume via the dac.
A pot will add noise so best leave it at max volume for best performance.

The best would be: Good DAC (use as volume control) and good amp with variable gain (example TPA3116 able to adjust gain with resistor settings).