Digital volume control

[mpapo]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing music through my active Event Opals that are fed directly from my Oppo bdp 105, so no pre-amp in between.

Now I have the choice to connect the Opal's with XLR (balanced) or RCA (unbalanced) connections. The balanced output of the Oppo is 4v while the unbalanced voltage is 2v, which means the balanced output is louder.

My reasoning is that it's better to connect the Opal's unbalanced so that I can set the volume louder on the Oppo resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Then secondly I could adjust the level on the Opal's to -6 dB which means that I can set the volume on the Oppo even higher, resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Thanks for the input

 

[bluedroog]

You’d imagine so but many people seem to have a preference for balanced, must be quite easy to try? How do you find the Opals? I haven’t heard them yet but must have read everything that has been written on them, I want to hear them and I want to love them. If they’re as good as people say I think I may be joining you as an owner.

I’m not certain on this and not sure if it is universal either but I think I read (in regard to a Squeezebox Touch) that the signal is not degraded till you go below 77%.

 

[davedotco]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing music through my active Event Opals that are fed directly from my Oppo bdp 105, so no pre-amp in between.

Now I have the choice to connect the Opal's with XLR (balanced) or RCA (unbalanced) connections. The balanced output of the Oppo is 4v while the unbalanced voltage is 2v, which means the balanced output is louder.

My reasoning is that it's better to connect the Opal's unbalanced so that I can set the volume louder on the Oppo resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Then secondly I could adjust the level on the Opal's to -6 dB which means that I can set the volume on the Oppo even higher, resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Thanks for the input

Two separate issues here.

Firstly do you want to run balanced or unbalanced, try it and see. Get the levels matched as closely as you can, spl meter maybe, and have a listen, see if you have a preference.

Set up with your preferred cable and turn the level/trim control on the Opals to minimum
set the Oppo to max output and play some music then gently increase the levels on the Opals until the system is playing as loud as you would use it in normal use. (You can alwys turn the Opals up higher if you want to make a real noise).
With the system set in this way you can use the volume on the Oppo. Attenuation even to background levels will only loose a couple of bits and this will be of no real consequence.

 

[jaxwired]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing music through my active Event Opals that are fed directly from my Oppo bdp 105, so no pre-amp in between.

Now I have the choice to connect the Opal's with XLR (balanced) or RCA (unbalanced) connections. The balanced output of the Oppo is 4v while the unbalanced voltage is 2v, which means the balanced output is louder.

My reasoning is that it's better to connect the Opal's unbalanced so that I can set the volume louder on the Oppo resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Then secondly I could adjust the level on the Opal's to -6 dB which means that I can set the volume on the Oppo even higher, resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Thanks for the input

Your logic seems sound (haha) to me. Although most manufacturers claim zero degradation regardless of volume if it's a 32 bit (or higher) volume control.

 

[davedotco]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing music through my active Event Opals that are fed directly from my Oppo bdp 105, so no pre-amp in between.

Now I have the choice to connect the Opal's with XLR (balanced) or RCA (unbalanced) connections. The balanced output of the Oppo is 4v while the unbalanced voltage is 2v, which means the balanced output is louder.

My reasoning is that it's better to connect the Opal's unbalanced so that I can set the volume louder on the Oppo resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Then secondly I could adjust the level on the Opal's to -6 dB which means that I can set the volume on the Oppo even higher, resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

Thanks for the input

Your logic seems sound (haha) to me. Although most manufacturers claim zero degradation regardless of volume if it's a 32 bit (or higher) volume control.

Modern digital processors run at 24 or 32 bit (some even higher), a digital volume control looses 1 bit of data for ever 6db of attenuation, so reducing the volume by 30db (pretty loud to fairly quiet) looses just 5 bits.

For all practical purposes this is irrelevant, even obsessives like me realise that if you set it up and use it in the way described in my post above, there will be no difference in the SQ.

 

[mpapo]

You’d imagine so but many people seem to have a preference for balanced, must be quite easy to try? How do you find the Opals? I haven’t heard them yet but must have read everything that has been written on them, I want to hear them and I want to love them. If they’re as good as people say I think I may be joining you as an owner.

I’m not certain on this and not sure if it is universal either but I think I read (in regard to a Squeezebox Touch) that the signal is not degraded till you go below 77%.

They're as good as people say, if you don't have an excessively large room, then I quite frankly don't know how much more speaker one could want/need. That is, if you like their presentation of course.

Music is detailed, very clean & free of distortion even at very high spl's, strong dynamics with very good imaging. They are studio monitors but I wouldn't call them bright at all.

I think they're quite sensitive to positioning though, so take some time experimenting once you buy them

 

[Overdose]

Some people seem to be assuming that the volume control in the OPPO is in the digital domain, either that or they know for sure that it is.

If it isn't, then it doesn't really matter what connectivity is used, or how the volume adjustment is distributed between the OPPO and the Opals.

In a typical home use environment, there is little benefit in using balanced connections.

 

[mpapo]

I'm not assuming it, read it on their site.

http://wiki.oppodigital.com/index.php?title=BDP-105_Headphone_Amplifier_FAQ

 

[Overdose]

I'm not assuming it, read it on their site.

http://wiki.oppodigital.com/index.php?title=BDP-105_Headphone_Amplifier_FAQ

Well that's the headphone amplifer explained, presumably the preouts are the same? Either way, it would seem that there is nothing to worry about.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing music through my active Event Opals that are fed directly from my Oppo bdp 105, so no pre-amp in between.

Now I have the choice to connect the Opal's with XLR (balanced) or RCA (unbalanced) connections. The balanced output of the Oppo is 4v while the unbalanced voltage is 2v, which means the balanced output is louder.

My reasoning is that it's better to connect the Opal's unbalanced so that I can set the volume louder on the Oppo resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

correct

Then secondly I could adjust the level on the Opal's to -6 dB which means that I can set the volume on the Oppo even higher, resulting in less chance of my signal getting detoriated by the volume control.

Correct ?

also correct, but this might be a little bit of hit-and-miss method if you don't know for sure how much Opal's amps sensitivity would change if you reduce the gain by 6dB.

but if you want to have the cake and eat the cake (ie. don't tax your amps output and use XLR out off your Oppo) you should find out at what gain setting the amps' sensitivity would be 4V. that way you could use all of the available volume control on Oppo and wouldn't risk overloading the amps.

P.S. I'd wager that the default sensitivity for the amps should be in between 1V to 1.5V so you could turn down the gain quite a bit.