Thank you Paul, for that intuitive explanation! I'm a stereophile from Sri Lanka and have been for about 35 of my 51 years; it's just today that I truly understood the difference between volume and gain!
Yeah, I agree. I just have never quite grasped this before. I always assumed the volume control limited the output AFTER amplification---you're only using so much made. What a great, clear explanation! Nope you're limiting the voltage to be amplified. Thank you Paul!
OMG,that was the greatest simplest explanation for volume and gain, so the 1 volt in Volume set to .2 volt The output also changes accordingly, So volume influence both input and output
With reference to the Mark Levinson 326S, there is an other thing witch can be taken into consideration, as well: - This amplifier have independent gain control for all its inputs - witch mean you can also use this gain control to adjust, and equal out different signal strengths from different sources!
This actually really helped explain how the Pre and Post gain works on my Peavey amp for my bass rig. Was using them backwards this whole time. The manual does a poor job of explaining how they work, but this really cleared things up for me.
Great video ! I own the Vandersteen Quatro Wood CT loudspeakers and they are extraordinary, wouldn’t trade them unless I was upgrading in the Vandersteen line.
Those might be the original cloth covered Quatros, debuted in 2006 (I think). Paul did not say which of his Aspen series speakers the customer purchased. My guess is the FR30s, because otherwise I don't think it would be worth the trouble (perhaps not the sound quality benefit either) to trade in Quatros for FR20s or lower. I wonder if that Vandersteen customer listened to the Aspen based speakers before doing the trade-in? Or did the customer succumb to Paul's masterful salesmanship persona from these videos? And that customer is going to learn that he now has a bass issue that he did not have with his Quatros, because the Quatros have 11 potentiometers, to virtually flatten the bass. If that customer has bass valleys or bass humps in his room, his Aspen speakers have no remedy. It would be great to hear from that customer. Alas, we never will. I also believe that Paul cleverly took a shot at Vandersteen, by telling the world that a customer is upgrading from Vandersteen speakers to Aspen speakers. Of course, Paul said nice things about Richard Vandersteen. But none of that undo's the visual and Paul's commentary that the customer is discarding Vandersteen speakers in favor of Aspen speakers. I have heard the Quatros many times, from the cloth version to the wood version. I really wonder if the Aspen speakers are as good as the Quatro Wood speakers? i am confident that Vandersteen's Kento and Seven speakers are better than any of the Aspen speakers, based on my listening experiences. In all fairness, I never had the opportunity to listen to the Aspen series. But review wise, the Vandersteen Kento speakers and Vandersteen Seven speakers get non-stop praise. The Aspen speakers also get praise, but I have not seen the same level of adoration and devotion to Aspen speakers as I have seen for Vandersteen speakers. So our host took a shot at Vandersteen speakers, conveying that his Aspen speakers are better. Well, the FR30 speakers are approximately twice the price of the Quatro Wood speakers, so they should be better than the Quatro Wood speakers. But I doubt that they are more than marginally better. And if the customer has a bass anomaly (most rooms do), then even if the mids are better, and the soundstaging is better, that bass issue will grind on that customer's nerves. The customer had no problem trading in Vandersteen Quatros. Any dealer will take them, because they fly off the shelves. If the customer is unhappy with his Aspen speakers, and decides to go for the Vandersteen Kento speakers, I wonder how easy it will be to have a dealer take his Aspen speakers for a trade-in? Those Aspen speakers would likely sit for quite a while at the dealer, and the dealer knows that. Whereas, Vandersteen speakers will sell themselves. In fact, I wonder if our host paid the customer a premium to get those Vandersteen Quatro speakers, just to have the opportunity to use them in a video, conveying that Aspen's are better. If Richard Vandersteen sees this video, I wonder if he will set the record straight? That "good friend" statement from Paul will probably no longer be the case. Richard will see through what Paul did in this video.
Coming from a vanderstein owner who's never heard any of the aspens. Also most manufacturers strive to have the least amount of components between the amp and driver with just a single capacitor or inductor being the goal. All those potentiometers in between amp and driver must colour the sound and there are other ways of tuning the bass with speaker placement and or room treatments. Kind regards
@@staceymangham "All those potentiometers in between amp and driver must colour the sound..." Vandersteen's Quatro, Kento, and Seven model speakers (model Five, too, when they were in production), are the only Vandersteen models that have potentiometers. Those aforementioned speaker models are all bi-amped. The signal going to the midrange driver and the tweeter driver never see the potentiometers. The bass section of the above models all have dedicated amps that power the woofers, and only the woofers. That design relieves the main amps from the heavy lifting of bass notes (not entirely, but significantly). "...must colour the sound..." You will find no reputable reviews asserting a colored sound. I have never seen any review of any of the above models having colored sound. "...and there are other ways of tuning the bass with speaker placement and or room treatments." Those ways are employed during a professional installation of those Vandersteen speakers. But after ideal speaker placement and room treatments are in place, you will still not have flat bass. Virtually no one ever does. You can measure the bass output via a microphone at your seated position, feeding a laptop running "Smart" software, and playing bass frequencies that the Smart software evaluates. Vandersteen provides those frequencies on a CD that accompanies the speakers. Vandersteen also has the tones available for free downloading on his site. The tones are measured for each speaker, individually. So the last detail in the speaker set-up is to fine-tune the bass with those tones and the Smart software (it can be done by ear, but no one will ever get it as precise as using the microphone and software). Virtually every room will then have a flat bass response (at the seated position), or very close to a flat response. Even rooms with terrible bass issues will be tamed with the above procedure -- not perfectly, but it will be far better. Aspens in that same room will not have a way to remedy such a bass issue.
A volume control is the same as gain usualy in a self contained playback unit with speaker. It is called Volume due to the normal hearing property of losing low frequency sensitivity at low levels making the sources sound thinner. In other applications it is called gain, contrast, RF gaun, etc. The loudness control has a base boost as it is set to lower setting such that when set for lower listening levels the sound source still sounds full. I hope this helps those confused by over simplification.
Brilliant explanation as always 👏A future book idea can be a HiFi FAQ - based on the hundreds of queries you've answered over the years on this channel 🙂
Gain is just the ratio between input and output (typically voltage) in a linear circuit. (Power amps DO have current gain values but this is rarely published and/or talked about since it is dependent on the voltage gain AND the load) "Volume" is a subjective audio term and typically "controls" both voltage gain and current gain since humans tend to listen to music through impedance loads.
That was a great explanation. In that case why should home audio gear have gain knobs? it only complicates things for the user to have both volume and gain. I can understand it in pro-audio that you have all kinds of inputs/output with different voltages but in home audio it can be pretty standardized.
What should a typical gain in a pre-amp be to have a good amount of movement of the volume control. I have seen some amps I can't stand where you can't play them soft it seem because they have too much gain. Can changing the resistance in the volume control pot help this problem or would lowering the gain with a different feedback resistor fix it better? Can lowering the gain or changing the resistance of the volume control pot reduce the noise floor in an amp? Can someone tell me how to make an amp more silent at idle other than different types of resistors?
Gain is usually expressed as a +dB quantity (+0db on up) whereas volume is from -x dB (at the lowest) up to 0dB. That is, in your setup, the volume control is a pot (which is a variable resistor), and the maximum volume is no resistance. As in your setup, gain is typically applied pre-amp stage. From what you describe, I think what you're looking for is to change the gain, because you want to boost that signal by a fixed amount BEFORE it reaches the volume control. The volume control then attenuates the signal by some variable amount. I don't know enough to answer your question for sure, but I suspect what you're looking for is a gain adjustment. They would both kinda do the same thing at the end of the day, but the thing is that volume controls sometimes do other things, too. For instance, on my Sansui AU-9500, the volume control pot also has a "tap" for the loudness circuit. As you turn the volume pot to the right, the loudness circuit has less and less of an effect until you reach some point (I think it's around 50% volume, but I'm not sure). (This is how loudness should work, whether its done with a pot controlling a circuit or done digitally somehow, although on lower-end amps they sometimes fudge it by just boosting those frequencies a fixed amount). As with your setup, gain is typically applied to a SOURCE signal in the pre-amp stage. Volume is applied in the amp stage. (I think, I could be wrong). The rest of your question sends me to Google, so I'm not gonna just retype something else that I don't understand myself, heh.
You need to lower the overall gain, which means changing the resistors in the feedback circuits. Not a simple undertaking. Changing the value of the volume control potentiometer won't change anything.
Gain = sound level adjustment for calibrating system. Volume = user adjustable sound level. As electronics engineer we often use the term gain as ratio of output to input when involving amplification of a signal (not only audio). The dB (decibel) is a logarithmic way of describing a ratio.
I am learning my new RME ADI fs2 and I am currently working on the differences in my system, am I correct in saying that a parametric EQ e.g. 5 band means five settable gains. If so I suspect I'll find the same as you as I think I prefer it without EQ. I think it also has overall gain settings, (I''ll check later ) if so I'm glad to have watched Paul as I would assumed high gain = more sparkle or something.
hi Paul sir, namaste 🙏, I am from Mumbai, India. I am your subscriber, and never miss any video. i request you to resolve my query please, i want to know about gain built in power amplifier vs gain/volume control in preamplifier stage. in your previous videos you have mentioned that power amplifiers have generally a gain of about 26 -27db. and if a power amp is 100watts. so if i give 1 volt volume from preamp, how much power a 100 watt amplifier will produce? and what if I use a 200 watt amplifier with the same preamplifier and give 1 volt? as per your previous videos i learned that the loudness will be the same from speakers. if that is the case then why there is 3db boost when we double the watts in the amplifier. i am a bit confused to understand the entire scenario of this gain match with preamplifiers, amplifiers & speakers please simplify this complication. thank you very much sir. you are a brilliant teacher for people like us. god bless you.🙏
This is a very good question: The standard definitions and distinction includes: "Gain is the input level within the amps; volume is the output level that goes to the speaker. Gain allows adjusting the tone of an audio track, whereas volume affects its loudness only." In a guitar amplifier "your gain setting determines how clean or dirty your sound is regardless of the master volume setting. You can set the gain high for a dirty tone, but set the overall volume of that dirty tone from near silent to near deafening using the master volume control." It's more than just semantics
Volume and gain. Speed and acceleration. Volume and speed are measurements of the current conditions. How loud or how fast we are right then. While gain and acceleration are changes in conditions. With gain being how much increase in voltage or power. While acceleration is the rate of change of speed.
It sounds to me that you got it backwords. In a pre-amp, and power amp, the input game comes first, then the Volume. You set the gain of the input to about 2 or 3, then you control the Output volume with the potentiometer, and you can turn that as high or as low as you want it to go, as long as the input gain is not too high.
@@edd2771 Good points. 🤣🤣😉😉. I’m a professional instructor in my career. We learn a lot about adult learners and how they absorb and retain information. The white board is a real deal…. Visual aids are key in retention for sure…. I was just teasing ya a bit, nothing to serious 😉😊😊
