Sound level setting?

[Nutul]

With hardware setting it's always at 100% volume output

Tim was asking you about both the headphone AND the line out levels, so, what's the behavior of the two volumes when operating moOde's on-screen volume knob?
Do they both change?
Does at least one of them?
None of them?

Bear in mind that you can always swap the DACs, so that the external one is plugged to the monitor's hub, and moOde is hooked to the speakers' USB input (and this will let you control their volume in moOde, setting its volume control to "Software").

[Tim Curtis]

Hi,

"hardware" does appear, in addition to "software", "fixed", and "null"

I've tried @Nutul suggestion (no unity 0dB option, so speakers set at roughly 50%), however I then start hearing some static when no audio is playing. So that's not a great solution either...

Any others suggestion I could try?

Ok, with moOde set to "Hardware" volume does the moOde volume knob vary the volume of both the headphone out and line level out, or just the headphone out and line level is always at 100% volume ?

With hardware setting it's always at 100% volume output

Ok, that confirms that the hardware volume controller in the device operates only the headphone out.

When a device has a hardware volume controller there are certain settings in moOde that result in its volume (ALSA volume) being set to 0dB so the overall device volume is 0dB at 100% moOde (MPD) or renderer volume.

For the Headphone output:

Volume type    ALSA 0dB set            Max ALSA volume applies
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hardware       When knob is 100        Yes
Software       When configured         Yes
Fixed (0dB)    When configured         Yes

Renderer       ALSA 0dB set             Max ALSA volume applies
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bluetooth      When renderer connects   Yes
AirPlay        When renderer connects   Yes
Spotify.       When renderer connects   Yes

For the Line level output in the device, since it is always at 0dB moOde settings don't have any effect.

[Falco]

I've now also tried the headphone out of my microstreamer with audio on "hardware" setting, this seems to work best as the base volume is less loud. In that way I can indeed regulate volume with moOde's on-screen volume knob.

I've been looking at the Microstreamer specs (below) and the output is less Volt from the headphone plug, so I do not need to dial down so much. With the fixed level output and speakers knob set to about 50% as @Nutul suggested I sometimes heard loud plops etc when switching inputs (laptop, moOde, desktop). I figured that's too risky for my speakers...

The only thing I realized is that when I use the spotify renderer, I need to think about the volume setting in Spotify. With the speaker volume at about 50%, the standard Spotify volume output is quite loud....

Full Scale Output 2.25 V RMS (line), 1.4V (headphone)
Output Impedance 50 Ohm (line), .5 Ohm (headphone)
Frequency Response (20 Hz/20 kHz) +0db / -.4dB
Output Power up to 140 mW (headphone)
Noise Floor (DC to 30 kHz) 18 uV RMS
S/N Ratio (DC to 30 kHz) 102 dB
S/N Ratio (A-weighted) 105 dB
THD+N (1 kHz Full Scale) .002% (line), .008% (headphone)
THD+N (1 kHz -20dB) .0006% (line)
Jitter Contribution (DC to 30 kHz) >130 dB below full scale
Attenuator Range line fixed, 63 steps (headphone)
Sample Rate up to 96 kHz
Bit Depth up to 24 bit
USB Transfer Protocol asynchronous
Power Requirements (USB Buss) 100 mA
Dimensions 2.5" x 1.2" x 0.4"