Hi there,
I need some help and advice about how to set my volume on my desktop endpoint setup, as I think the signal is too strong leaving my DAC.
I am just setting up a new DAC, a RME ADI-2 DAC FS. Lots of settings, lots to play with. Anyway, it sits on my desktop and is fed from an Allo USBridge Sig using Ropieee. The DAC then feeds, via balanced XLR, a set of ADAM F5 active speakers. Roon Core is on a NUC and feeds all my endpoints via ethernet.
I am just getting my head around volume control and it is not something I have given a huge amount of thought to previously.
I have Roon upsampling, to the power of 2, and I have some headroom management enabled (-15). I have also enabled volume leveling (at the max -25lufs) in order to bring the signal strength down (the gain??). The actual volume is set to fixed so you can’t adjust in roon.
The DAC has a volume control of its own, which I can access either with a remote or with a dial on the unit.
The speakers also have volume control but it is only accessed via a knob on the rear of each speaker, by default its set to ‘0’ but you can add or subtract 6db.
So I have the ability to access volume control from multiple locations, but I am not sure which is best or most optimal.
I think the signal leaving the DAC might be too ‘hot’, and I wonder whether some balanced xlr attenuators might be useful, but not sure if it should be -10db or -20db (or anything else)? I could then set Roon volume leveling to much lower or even off. I could then leave the volume control on the DAC at 0.0db.
Another option could be to reduce the volume on the speakers, but the only way to do it acurately might be to measure what is coming out of them at the seating position. At least set at ‘0’ there is clear notch to feel when you adjust them.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Is this the right situation to consider attenuators?