Pani, yes as George indicated it would certainly be relevant to know exactly what your source component(s) is or are.
In the meantime, though, in regard to what I alluded to earlier about the peaks of some recordings leaving margin relative to the maximum volume capability of the medium, my curiosity was sufficiently piqued that I've just made some measurements to shed some quantitative light on that.
What I've done is to use the Sony Sound Forge professional audio editing program I have to examine the waveforms of about a dozen different tracks from about a dozen different CD's, both classical and popular, dating from very recent years all the way back to reissues of 1940's and 1950's material. The Sound Forge program can quickly tell me the level of the highest instantaneous peak on a track.
While several of the tracks essentially reached the maximum possible ("full scale") level of the CD medium, which is identified as 0 db, many others peaked at various points between -1 and -4 db, with one peaking at -6 db and another at -8 db.
A -6 db peak will result for that track in the maximum output of a CD player or other digital source being 1/2 of its rated (maximum) output. So for example a CD player rated to provide 2 volts would never put out more than 1 volt for that track.
As I alluded to earlier, my philosophy is to avoid configuring a system in a manner that might be marginal (or worse) even with just a relatively small number of recordings.
Regards,
-- Al
In the meantime, though, in regard to what I alluded to earlier about the peaks of some recordings leaving margin relative to the maximum volume capability of the medium, my curiosity was sufficiently piqued that I've just made some measurements to shed some quantitative light on that.
What I've done is to use the Sony Sound Forge professional audio editing program I have to examine the waveforms of about a dozen different tracks from about a dozen different CD's, both classical and popular, dating from very recent years all the way back to reissues of 1940's and 1950's material. The Sound Forge program can quickly tell me the level of the highest instantaneous peak on a track.
While several of the tracks essentially reached the maximum possible ("full scale") level of the CD medium, which is identified as 0 db, many others peaked at various points between -1 and -4 db, with one peaking at -6 db and another at -8 db.
A -6 db peak will result for that track in the maximum output of a CD player or other digital source being 1/2 of its rated (maximum) output. So for example a CD player rated to provide 2 volts would never put out more than 1 volt for that track.
As I alluded to earlier, my philosophy is to avoid configuring a system in a manner that might be marginal (or worse) even with just a relatively small number of recordings.
Regards,
-- Al