Speaking about Audirvana’s volume slider, I was under the impression that its optimum value was 0 dB, which has the slider in its position on the right side end of the scale. I was running Audirvana with this volume setting all the time.
Now, I recently replaced my stereo amplifier with a new one, which has a lot more »Watt power«. With this new one, I have to turn its volume knob only very slightly to get a listening volume that suits me.
Which in itself should be fine with me, but it seems, that my new amplifier has some problems with always keeping the correct stereo balance under this »hardly turned volume knob conditions«.
Is that a known phenomenon? And if so, how to deal with it?
This is not an unusual problem, unfortunately - or, at least, not as unusual as one would hope.
Mis-balanced output with the volume control set low (especially if it’s a conventional double-potentiometer) is something I have encountered with numerous systems over the years.
Potentiometers, even good ones, tend to track more accurately at higher settings. As you have noticed, the higher the power of the system the lower one may need to set the volume control, so the problem is more likely to reveal itself with a high-powered system in a smaller room.
This is a problem I have in my current system, though it’s more of a mild annoyance than a real problem.
I simply set the preamp’s volume a little higher than I would otherwise set it, adjust the preamp’s balance control to centre the image (if necessary), and then use Audirvana’s volume control (more accurately, in my case the volume control is in fact in my DAC, and is controlled by Audirvana).
I have never noticed any degradation in sound quality by using Audirvana to adjust volume.
This also has a benefit for me, in that different albums need different volume settings. So I simply tweak volume from my listening position via the Audirvana remote.
Try this. I doubt you will notice any degradation of sound using Audirvana’s volume control.
The MathAudio Room EQ has a stereo balance slider, but I somehow distrust it. That’s why I try to go about this problem by
reducing Audirvana’s output volume and
tweaking the stereo balance via MathAudio Room EQ’s by lifting the reference frequency line of one channel (the left, »weaker« one in my case), rather than using its stereo balance slider.