the problem with volume > 100%

[palettentreter]

Hi,
I just listened to a 96kHz audio DVD with vlc (for the first time) and first I thought probably the recording equipment was bad, then I thought my cables must be broken, and then I feared for my speakers. So I got my headphones and reckoned my sound card must be crap.
Now after spending 40 minutes wondering how Robert Fripp may have been using bad recording equipment, the mouse cursor accidentally stays over the volume gauge and the tooltip says 160%.
So I turn the volume gauge down just below 100% (looks more like 10%) and suddenly my record isn't broken anymore.

Bottom Line: While I understand that allowing to increase gain may be useful, I think it should be a separate setting. Otherwise you ecourage 90% of your users to destroy their sound.

[Floflo]

I totally agree with palettentreter.
I know a lot of people who use VLC for all their multimedia playback needs, and most of them always put the volume slider above 100%... and get horrible distortion without knowing why. Eventually they get used to it but of course when you show that to them they understand it's much better without distortion.
This mostly affects music as today's music is mastered to be always very close to saturation while in movies it's not as noticeable as the amplitude of the sound rarely reaches 0.5.

For me 2 solutions are possible:

• Add a warning message when volume is set above 100% that explains briefly that the sound is amplified in a way that could lead to saturation/distortion.
• Turn software amplification into a separate setting. For example there could be a checkbox "Amplify 2x" close to the volume slider (that would not go above 100%), with a warning when used (at least on first use).

Personnaly I never use the volume slider in any program but only the OS volume setting (that doesn't distort sound when at 100%) or my speakers' own volume knob. Most computer keyboards nowadays come with volume buttons anyway...

Since nobody answered this topic yet I guess nobody cares about sound quality anymore... I hope someone will prove me wrong there

[nbenford]

This is a very important point, and one that I feel should have been addressed a long time ago. I'm a recording engineer and producer by trade, and I never could understand how such a great media player like VLC could give its less knowledgeable users such a long rope with which to hang themselves from! Yes, most media and pop music these days peaks constantly at 0 dBFS or just below, meaning that if the volume slider is brought even a little bit above 100%, the signal will begin to be degraded, literally bit by bit. Truly, the slider should stay at 100% (or below if necessary) and the volume controlled by an analog potentiometer post D to A conversion and pre amplifier and speakers.

I rely on VLC to be my dedicated media player in my studio, and I need to trust that it's giving me bit perfect playback, and the fact that the volume slider is so easily moved makes me paranoid. A discrepancy of 0.5 dB or less can make a recording sound weak when compared to it's slightly louder companion, never mind a dozen percentage points quieter! The huge volume range on the VLC player makes such mistakes way too easy to do.

I propose what I think would be an easy implementation: make a checkbox in the preferences to turn off the volume control entirely. When checked, the volume fader would not appear in the GUI at all and couldn't be moved by key commands either. The gain would be permanently fixed at 100% (or whatever the user wanted it to be set to). This would give me SUCH peace of mind! I wouldn't have to obsessively hover the cursor over the volume fader to make sure it's at 100%. Would this be as easy to add to VLC as it seems? Thanks very much.

And to add to what the previous two posters mentioned, a warning when increasing over 100% would be amazing too. I think the decrease in quality recordings these days can be directly linked to the consumer's terrible playback habits, including listening on only tiny earbuds or through laptop speakers with digital faders cranked to DISTORT. No wonder people can't tell a good recording from bad these days! They're shooting themselves in the foot before they start, and I think we need to help remedy this client-side ignorance in any way we can.

[palettentreter]

Great, seems like after all, I'm not the only one who finds that volume gauge frightening. I'd like to emphasize that in fact the value displayed in the tooltip corresponds to the position of the mouse pointer on the volume gauge, and not to the actual setting.



How does that make any sense? I'm really sorry if I'm ranting, because I'm VERY grateful to have a feature-rich multimedia player that works reliably. But there's exactly one reason why I'm constantly trying out other players and hoping for their functionality to mature. And that's the sloppy UI design of VLC. It feels like a time-travel back to the nineties. However I don't like criticizing without being constructive, so I'm gonna shut up till I have patches or at least something sensible to say. But really, if the UI were acceptable, I'd have no need for any other player. Like this, I still have to carry around kmplayer, kaffeine, smplayer and probably some other stuff, all of which have a better UI, but none can match the reliability of VLC. So unfortunately, because of UI issues, VLC is still "only" a fallback-player for me.