Cap volume output on Receiver

[jagofulford]

I have a pretty old receiver which i use to amplify the output from my DVD, games console and PC to my surround sound speakers.

Quite often the sound coming out of one of these sources is quite quiet, especially the PC. Thus the gain is turned up high, if I then swop to another source such as the tuner, I get deafened by the sudden increase in volume.

Does anyone know if any Home Theatre receivers can cap or limit the volume outputed to Speakers? Or if there is any kind of box I can put between the receiver and speakers to cap the voltage going through?

Any help/suggestions would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Jago

[Dusty Chalk]

If your problem is the PC, it might be as simple as turning the volume of the PC to max, and then adjusting your volume at the receiver downwards. Then when you switch to a different source, the transient might not be so bad.

[jagofulford]

Dusty,

Thanks for your response, unforunatly while it is mostly the PC, I have turned the outputs up to max as my first point of call. The sound is being output via the SPDIF output, would this make a difference?

Regards,

Jago

[Dusty Chalk]

It shouldn't -- what receiver are you using? Some receivers have a fancy feature where you can adjust the different sources, but that's a function of the receiver.

Another thing you can do is attenuate your other source. There's these things called inline attenuators, but the problem with that is, you're making it harder for your amplifier to work -- it has to amplify the signal that much more, and that's just prone to more distortion.