Just bought an Arcam rpac. Volume control question.

[admin_exported]

Hi, I’ve just bought an Arcam rpac and am using it on a PC running Windows XP. Has anyone who’s got one found the following to be the case with theirs?

The volume control slider in the system tray is next-to-useless. Instead of being linear as it is with everything else, it’s now pretty much exponential. There’s no sound until the slider gets past half-way up, then everything seems to ‘happen’ in the top 10% of it’s movement.

Obviously it’s the same slider that’s labelled ‘Speaker’ in the four-slider control thingy. I've tried leaving that at a suitable level and using the slider named 'Wave' for fine adjustment, but then I instinctively keep going into the system tray to adjust the volume. Annoying.

 

[ID.]

Not used the rPac, but my instinct for all products like this is to put the PC's volume to full and do all volume control using the device. Not sure why I do this; maybe I heard somewhere that this is part of what is necessary to get a bit perfect feed or to ensure the PC's processing doesn't impact the digital feed, or something.

 

[quadpatch]

Not used the rPac, but my instinct for all products like this is to put the PC's volume to full and do all volume control using the device. Not sure why I do this; maybe I heard somewhere that this is part of what is necessary to get a bit perfect feed or to ensure the PC's processing doesn't impact the digital feed, or something.

Yep that sounds pretty spot on to me. All the computer volume sliders should be at max to guarantee the digital signal is not messed with before it gets to the DAC. That is unless you have a DAC that is supposed to be controlled that way, like the Audioquest Dragonfly or HRT Headstreamer.