Leedh lossless digital attenuation

[Edward]

One of the stated negatives of digital attenuation is that it is achieved by throwing away bits and thus losing resolution.

Seems that a French inventor has come up with a way of doing this without loss of any resolution. It's not clear how he has achieved this other than via various algorithms which are patented. Judging from the few reviews it seems that the results impress.

see for example:

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatur...ich2018/9.html

The end of analog preamps?

I'm of the camp that digital attenuation is just fine when done at a high enough bit rate (e.g. 64 bit) as you need to throw away lots of bits before it even becomes theoretically noticeable. But perhaps this new digital attenuation will satisfy the purists amongst us? Or maybe this new 'invention' will be left in the graveyard of good ideas?

[Firebottle]

Very very interesting.
Can't see this being 'left in the graveyard of good ideas' as it has already been taken up by a manufacturer, though their prices are eye watering.

[Macca]

I was reading about this just the other day, of course I have forgotten where and most of the details. But the gist of it was that there were only a few situations where digital attenuation would lose resolution and the whole idea of digital attenuation 'being bad' was mostly a myth.

[Gazjam]

Many...MANY ways to skin a cat,

Has a Patent....wow thats impressive.

[Edward]

I was reading about this just the other day, of course I have forgotten where and most of the details. But the gist of it was that there were only a few situations where digital attenuation would lose resolution and the whole idea of digital attenuation 'being bad' was mostly a myth.

I also read somewhere, not related to the Leedh thing, that at 64 bits one would need to attenuate down by ca. 38db to even begin to have sound quality being impacted for an optimal human being (your proverbial teenager!).

I guess a key part of preamps, in addition to them being highly resolving, is the tone, texture and whatnot that preamps conveys. Some would call that colourisation. Not having listened to a Leedh implemented preamp I can only speculate as to what tone and texture it has.

All fascinating.

[Macca]

I guess a key part of preamps, in addition to them being highly resolving, is the tone, texture and whatnot that preamps conveys. Some would call that colourisation. Not having listened to a Leedh implemented preamp I can only speculate as to what tone and texture it has.

All fascinating.

Well they do tend to sound different so that implies some or all are coloured to some degree. But would all digital attenuators sound the same? I sort of suspect not. I need to read up a bit I think.

[NRG]

Well if you are using 24bits IE: squeezebox digital attenuation is fine at normal listening levels with 16bit material if of course the DAC handles 24bits. The only thing you lose is a bit of SNR, what it can’t do is compensate for a poorly matched system, you will lose bits in that situation.

[Jazid]

Speaker response varies rather more than digi attenuation does with volume...
Personally I can't hear 32 or 64 bit attenuation, but I keep the digi levels up near 0dB anyway and attenuate elsewhere in the chain (system matching not pot controls, they sound grainy to me these days)

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