jumpingjackflash5 Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 Hello, I am using Poweramp latest version (paid) on Moto G5S. Generally I do not use any equalizers - I prefer flat playback, I know that resampling to 48000 Hz and dithering to 16 bit is neccessary on Android since my phone has no 24 bit support. When I disable DVC sound volume is lower and a little bit "thinner", whereas when enabled it is louder. When I started to use Poweramp I left DVC disabled, but recently with the new builds I enabled it and started to like the new sound better than with DVC disabled. I would like to ask what exactly the Direct Volume Control function does. Does really DVC just control the volume on hardware level, preserving maximum fidelity possible on Android? I have read somewhere that DVC acts like a compressor, that seems strange to me, since it would change the sound character of the track and would be very CPU intensive. On the other hand, if it works in such a way that it controls the volume at the phone DAC (or system) level and lets use the full 16 bit pathway (that is available) for sending the audio stream from Poweramp to android mixer, it can really help given that 16 bit dynamics is already at the edge of fidelity on playback, and if without DVC the volume reduction but be done within 16 bit stream it can make audio worse. So please experienced users explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumpingjackflash5 Posted January 14, 2019 Author Share Posted January 14, 2019 Nobody knows the mechanism of Direct Volume Control? Sounds good but I would like to know how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blaubär Posted January 14, 2019 Share Posted January 14, 2019 10 minutes ago, jumpingjackflash5 said: Nobody knows the mechanism of Direct Volume Control? Sounds good but I would like to know how it works. I found this : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/best-android-music-player-app.638387/page-2 . That's the Direct Volume Control feature kicking in. It adjusts the system volume such that if you do boosts in the graphic EQ, what it does instead is boost the system volume then apply EQ cut to everything except the boosted band. If you disable DVC in settings, have a flat EQ and push the preamp to max, the sound does not change, either in volume or timbre, the moment the EQ is turned on or off. But Direct Volume Control is a good feature, as long as it works properly (it doesn't on my phone, volume changes are not applied properly) and as long as people don't get paranoid about that pause when the EQ is turned on or off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumpingjackflash5 Posted January 14, 2019 Author Share Posted January 14, 2019 Ok thank you that I also read and it supports the hypothesis that dvc controls the system volume instead of the stream that goes into 16 bit "pipe". Which would be good. But I think that it should better confirmed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxmp Posted January 14, 2019 Share Posted January 14, 2019 When DVC is enabled, Poweramp tries to apply volume by itself vs standard volume controls in Android (that's a simple multiplication of each sample by volume value). It doesn't "control system volume". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumpingjackflash5 Posted January 15, 2019 Author Share Posted January 15, 2019 I don't know the internals of Android, but the concept of "application volume" and "system volume" ain't applicable for this OS? For sure there is a 16 bit, 48 kHz pipe that sound playback must go through in majority of Android phones, and we can adjust volume before that pipe or after that pipe. As I wrote now I am satisfied with the DVC sound, so I keep it on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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