sound volume - sound engineering

[stephen barncard]

The audio level control on the mac is not "tapered" for audio.  Physical
volume controls on audio gear use a LOG taper. Once in a while one will run
into a consumer product with a LINEAR taper volume control in the circuit -
and you will notice it - most of the level change will appear in the first
30% of the taper.

Once upon a time I built an audio control surface, and used linear Penny and
Giles conductive plastic linear faders. The faders were hooked up to a-d
converters which remotely controlled level in a rack elsewhere. I had to
create a look-up table in software to recreate the analog "feel".

On 5 May 2010 23:33, jim sims <sims at ezpzapps.com> wrote:

> Perhaps a sound engineering or physics expert might provide me with some
> insight into my perception of how players, playing sound, work - what the
> dynamics of sound are.
>
> When I listen to one player playing a sound at 100% and then listen to two
> players playing that same sound but having the playLoudness of both set to
> 70%,  to my untrained ears that it seems to have the same volume as the one
> player set to 100%.
>
> IOW - it seems (to my old compromised ears), that two players playing the
> same sound/signal at 70% seem as loud as one player set to 100%.
>
> I cannot discern any difference until I get the two players into the 50%
> range.
>
> It's as if there is  some sort of threshold, where the change in volume
> becomes obvious if two players are involved. When I play one player and
> change the playLoudness I can near slighter changes in playLoudness
> percentage.
>
> I'm having a difficult time explaining this...
>
> Is there some known effect that matches up with what I'm trying to explain?
>
> Is there some non-linear multiplier effect? Some formula for this?
>
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-- 
-------------------------
Stephen Barncard
Back home in SF