Yamaha RXV-2400

[GOIRISH]

Bought a RXV-2400 and have a question? The mute level is -80, I really don't start hearing much sound from my speakers until the level hits approx. -45. There is a big jump in sound level from -45 to -15. Is this normal? Also, can the receiver go into the +/plus range or will that cause problems? Manual doesn't help....Thanks, Paul

[nick4433]

Paul, I have tried a few Yamaha receivers and experienced the same issues as you do. In reality however, it is a non-issue and is realted to attenuation. I don't pay much attention to the volume readout on receivers these days. It is perfectly normal for the receivers to start going louder in a particular range and as long as your speakers and ears can handle it, you should be OK.

[Woochifer]

It's perfectly normal. Keep in mind that the sound level doubles with every 10 db increase (so a volume increase from -45db to -15db is actually an 8x increase in the sound level), and a digital volume control does not operate the same way as the analog controls that you might have grown up with. A lot of those analog controls operate more as simple power regulators than anything having to do with precisely controlling sound levels. In order to double the sound level, you need to increase the wattage by a factor of ten.

However, with most modern speakers, you only need ONE watt to get the sound level into the mid-80 to low-90 db range, which is pretty loud. If an analog volume control regulates the wattage in a somewhat linear manner, the volume knob doesn't have to go very far to reach a one watt output, but it has to bump up the wattage to 10 watts just to double the sound level, and 100 watts in order to quadruple the sound level.

It's a pretty common misconception by even experienced audio enthusiasts new to digital volume controls. Very often they gripe about how a receiver is "underpowered" because they have the volume turned halfway up and still can't hear anything, whereas their old amp was already up to earsplitting levels with the volume knob at the "10 o'clock position." That's simply because the digital volume control regulates on the basis of sound level as opposed to analog volume controls that are more about stepping up the wattage. Also as Nick points out, different manufacturers have different levels set for their "zero level" so the gain will not consistently mean the same thing when comparing different amps.