Hello. I am new to streaming and have just bought the new unitilite for my second system, sounds great. I am not new to Naim, so enjoy the 'house' sound.
I have a couple of questions I am hoping this forum can throw some light on:
Why are some internet radio stations way louder than others? If we take Radio 3 HD 320k it seems to be half the voulme of Naim Radio, Linn Jazz orParadise, all at similar transmission/bit rates. I am constantly having to turn the volume up or down.
Also, I am feeding my Samsung telly into the unitlite via a toslink cable. The volume is really low compared to all other sources, so I have adjusted that toslink source (digital 2) by +5 and lowered all other sources by -5 to equalise across all sources.
Now, what baffles me is that if the DAC in the uniti is just decoding a digital signal from my Samsung telly, why is the volume so much lower?
It gets stranger; when I play my HD freeview panasonic into the Samsung telly via HDMI cable and the Samsung is still obviously feeding the unitlite via the same toslink cable, volume is way louder again! All I have to do to proove this, is toggle between HDMI1 and TV, while both showing the same channel and the volume is much higher and more appealing from my Panasonic HDMI freeview than the Samsung telly.
I am baffled....lol!
Posted on: 24 November 2014 by Simon Rae
I have my UnitiLite connected via TOSLINK to my LG TV, and it seems fine when compared to most known sources (e.g.CD). By the sounds of it, the problem (if it is a problem) seems to be to do with the internal audio level of your TV's tuner stage output, as you say that fed via your set-top box through the TV, it seems fine.
With regards to the varying levels via Internet radio, then I think this is just down to the vagaries of the different sources - overall output and compression levels will have a marked effect. The perceived volume levels have little or nothing to do with sample rates or bit depth, and everything to do with the engineer in the studio. You should find levels fairly consistent from related sources (i.e all BBC channels tend to have similar loudness - depending on the music source of course), but you will find a huge variation across the board.
This is nothing new, and I'm sure if you go through your CD collection you will find a huge variety of perceived volume levels - it's just more obvious when listening online, as flicking between channels is near-instantaneous rather than the delay between changing CDs.
Posted on: 25 November 2014 by JoexNaim
Thanks Simon, all makes sense. My Samsung must have an achingly low digital volume output via the toslink.
Where I was confused, is why (or how) that gets transmitted digitally via toslink. There is no setting on the telly that allows it to be turned up so the unitilite is operating at twice its volume level to equalise the sound On that particular source.
Posted on: 26 November 2014 by ChrisSU
HH is right, the input trim feature can be used to balance the relative volumes of each input. What that won't do, of course, is balance the vol of your TV against your freeview, as they are using the same input on the Uniti. Does your freeview box not have a volume control that will achieve this? Likewise, different iRadio channels can't be balanced against each other as they are all on the same input.
