Does Volume Levelling affect the quality of sound?

[ATHANASIOS_BOULOUKO1 (ATHANASIOS BOULOUKOS)]

Volume Levelling is something that interests me but I am worried that It will compromise quality of sound so I have it OFF. Is it true that quality diminishes with Volume Levelling (let’s say when “Automatic” is selected)?

[Jim_F]

I don’t use volume leveling because I have never seen (or heard) a need for it. Use it if you need it. If you think it degrades SQ, then don’t use.

[TuliaNonTroppo]

I use it and appreciate what it does very much. I currently have it set at -18LUFS after using it for months at the default setting.

I really recommend playing around with it for a few days. It is free to try and may help whatever situation you may have.

It is helpful for me because I like shuffle mode quite a bit, my library is very diverse with older, quieter masterings with louder, more modern ones. Also, my speakers are very efficient, so any way to tame gain (without reducing gain? Hehe) is helpful for me.

Right now I am playing Bill Evans Trio 64 and volume leveling is at +0.06

As for reducing SQ, only you, your ears, and your equipment can be the judge of that.

[Kristian_Salo]

I found that it actually made my system sound better. I can run my amp volume dial higher and it seems that amp is working “better” with the physical volume dial higher and the Roon Volume Levelling attenuating the digital volume. It is done in 64bit, so it should be very negligible.

[TuliaNonTroppo]

For what it’s worth, my Rothwell RCA and XLR attenuators affect the sound more negatively than Roon’s digital volume leveling—yet I still use the attenuators at times. I feel that every tweak has value for a given situation. Each situation is so individual, it is difficult to predict someone else’s needs and solutions.

[AnimalOnDrums]

The Quick and easy answer is Yes, that is true at a very basic level. With the way Roon does it though, your sound quality will not diminish and using volume leveling won’t hurt anything. I use it as well and there is no loss of sound quality.

[dhusky]

You may find Brian’s previous discussion of this helpful:

Roon's 64 bit floating point volume leveling

Usually, there is enough extra headroom available to make quite a large adjustment without losing any precision. The 64bit number isn’t really involved in this discussion, because it is never the bottleneck for precision. There is always a smaller precision bottleneck somewhere between Roon and the DAC–typically 24 or 32 bits. Very occasionally there is a 16bit bottleneck–but this is limited to very old or very cheap devices not marketed at audiophiles. Lets say you’re starting with CD quality…