New Volume 'Curve'

[bossanova808]

Have just started playing with the 18/9 nightly and its great new Replay Gain feature. So far so good in terms of the Replay Gain, and I think Smart Gain mode is an excellent idea, although I haven't tested it all that much yet.

(Funnily enough here on Win XP it breaks the transitions.pm plugin for dynamic crossfade adjustment even though it uses some of the code).

I am using the analogue RCA outputs, going into a Rotel pre-amp, then power amp, then Rega Jura speakers.

I normally leave the player on volume level 6 which gave me some flexibility to go both up and down in volume nicely without having to go over to the amp (which doesn't have a remote for volume, so I like to leave it on a fixed volume).

I now find I have to have my amp up MUCH louder for volume level 6 to be the equivalent, and then the volumes from 9-11 are crazy, perhaps dangerously, loud. I find the new curve to be too steep at the high end, and too flat at the low end. I can't immediately find the thread where feedback on the new curve was asked for so I thought I'd start one here. My vote so far is for going back to the old curve, or at least a less steep curve than this one.

However I may well not use things the same way as others, so maybe the new curve works really well for other setups?

[dean]

On Sep 18, 2005, at 8:44 PM, bossanova808 wrote:
> I normally leave the player on volume level 6 which gave me some
> flexibility to go both up and down in volume nicely without having to
> go over to the amp (which doesn't have a remote for volume, so I like
> to leave it on a fixed volume).
>
> I now find I have to have my amp up MUCH louder for volume level 6 to
> be the equivalent, and then the volumes from 9-11 are crazy, perhaps
> dangerously, loud. I find the new curve to be too steep at the high
> end, and too flat at the low end. I can't immediately find the thread
> where feedback on the new curve was asked for so I thought I'd start
> one here. My vote so far is for going back to the old curve, or at
> least a less steep curve than this one.
The new curve is linear steps in decibels, where the full volume
(100%) is 0dB, 0% is silence and 1% is -49.5dB down.

I don't know about dangerously loud, but I think that it's probably a
good idea to make sure that your rig won't melt down if it gets a
full amplitude signal from a Squeezebox2.

>

[bossanova808]

Well, the pre-amp should trap anything dangerous, and the amp also has an overlaod circuit, so in theory the speakers should be safe. Once had the tweeters blow due to a current injection from a cheap DVD player though, so it isn't foolproof.

I should add I'm using the web interface to control volume rather than the 40 steps available on the player itself - it's just the jumps between steps seems much bigger.

Another point - have been listening to RGed music all afternoon and its going well, but only if I let each track play in full. If I use the web interface to skip tracks, then the replay gain seems to get turned off and the volumes are back to being all over the place. Is this perhaps a bug? Does anyone else get the same results?

[vidurapparao]

bossanova808 wrote:

><snip>
>Another point - have been listening to RGed music all afternoon and its
>going well, but only if I let each track play in full. If I use the web
>interface to skip tracks, then the replay gain seems to get turned off
>and the volumes are back to being all over the place. Is this perhaps a
>bug? Does anyone else get the same results?
>
>
There have been reports that ffwd/rew also turn off replay gain. I'll
look into both issues.

--Vidur

[sbjaerum]

Looking at the source in Squeezebox2.pm, it looks like the server side volume implementation receives integers ranging from 0 to 100. These numbers corresponds to -49.5dB to 0dB in increments of .5dB.

How does this map to the 40 steps volume control on the client?

Steinar

[dean]

percent = (slider / 40.0 * 100)

I'm not sure why it's integerized though...

On Sep 19, 2005, at 10:28 AM, sbjaerum wrote:

>
> Looking at the source in Squeezebox2.pm, it looks like the server side
> volume implementation receives integers ranging from 0 to 100. These
> numbers corresponds to -49.5dB to 0dB in increments of .5dB.
>
> How does this map to the 40 steps volume control on the client?
>
> Steinar
>
>
> --
> sbjaerum
>

[kdf]

Quoting dean blackketter <dean (AT) slimdevices (DOT) com>:

> percent = (slider / 40.0 * 100)
>
> I'm not sure why it's integerized though...

probably made more sense when there was a discrete 40-character display, and the
number would then match the number of boxes.

a new client method for volumeLines maybe?

-k

[dean]

On Sep 19, 2005, at 11:08 AM, kdf wrote:

> Quoting dean blackketter <dean (AT) slimdevices (DOT) com>:
>
>
>> percent = (slider / 40.0 * 100)
>>
>> I'm not sure why it's integerized though...
>>
>
> probably made more sense when there was a discrete 40-character
> display, and the
> number would then match the number of boxes.
>
> a new client method for volumeLines maybe?
>
No, no. I mean that we take the integer of the percentage and
calculate a volume gain for that. Not necessary at all (confirmed
with Vidur.)

[sbjaerum]

percent = (slider / 40.0 * 100)

I'm not sure why it's integerized though...

On Sep 19, 2005, at 10:28 AM, sbjaerum wrote:

>
> Looking at the source in Squeezebox2.pm, it looks like the server side
> volume implementation receives integers ranging from 0 to 100. These
> numbers corresponds to -49.5dB to 0dB in increments of .5dB.
>
> How does this map to the 40 steps volume control on the client?
>
> Steinar
>
>
> --
> sbjaerum
>

So the volume is adjusted in steps of 1.25dB then?

Steinar

[dean]

Actually right now it's alternating between 1.0 and 1.5dB but that
will be fixed in tonight's nightly.

-dean

On Sep 19, 2005, at 11:26 AM, sbjaerum wrote:

>
> dean Wrote:
>
>> percent = (slider / 40.0 * 100)
>>
>> I'm not sure why it's integerized though...
>>
>> On Sep 19, 2005, at 10:28 AM, sbjaerum wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Looking at the source in Squeezebox2.pm, it looks like the server
>>>
>> side
>>
>>> volume implementation receives integers ranging from 0 to 100. These
>>> numbers corresponds to -49.5dB to 0dB in increments of .5dB.
>>>
>>> How does this map to the 40 steps volume control on the client?
>>>
>>> Steinar
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> sbjaerum
>>>
>>>
>
> So the volume is adjusted in steps of 1.25dB then?
>
> Steinar
>
>
> --
> sbjaerum
>