Digital volume control

[karatestu]

Apologies if this has been discussed before but I don't remember

Many modern Dacs have digital volume control. Is it a good way to control volume with a digital only system ? I suspect all digital volume controls were not made equally so there may be some good examples and some bad ? What I would call good is something that is of equal or better quality to a good quality switch and resistors in a stepped attenuator.

Transparency is everything for me so I don't want to dirty any windows in any way, just clean them or remove them altogether

As I think about entering the modern digital age the thought of buying a dac becomes closer to the front of my mind. I won't be ditching the Cd player or vinyl so my plan was to have a file / streaming based source with dac and possibly digital volume control (depending on SQ ) alongside the other sources.

Being a 90's Naim cdp it doesn't have a digital out and one can't be added as Naim disabled any way to do it in their software . So I could have the cdp and vinyl sources going in to a stepped attenuator as normal and use digital volume control for the file based source. If the source selector is wired in AFTER the stepped attenuator then it should work.

Other option is to run everything through the stepped attenuator and bollox to the digital volume control. I am too much of a purist to put an anologue source through ADC and then DAC just for the sake of using digital control on everything.

[montechristo358]

personally i say no, most attenuate by changing the bits. can't ever be a good thing

[TheMadMick]

personally i say no, most attenuate by changing the bits. can't ever be a good thing

This was the attitude I held until I thought about it. As you reduce volume, the details get squeezed into the noise. Why is that so different to reducing the bits?

Let your ears decide.

[Fretless]

There is a difference between 'Hardware' volume control in some DAC's which has little or no impact on SQ - or 'software' volume control where the digital signal is modified (usually at the expense of SQ).

[antonio66]

My brother's dCS has a good volume control, but the more affordable dac's maybe not, unless the manufacturer intended it to be used as a pre.

[karatestu]

Thanks to all for the advice. I will forget that idea.