Volume

Overview

There are multiple volume modes in Media Center.

You can switch volume modes using the Player > Volume Menu.

You can also click the little speaker to the left of the volume slider to access the same menu.

Mode Details

System Volume

System Volume controls the master volume of the entire system. It is equivalent to clicking the volume system icon and adjusting the slider.

Application Volume

Application Volume controls the volume of only Media Center. This requires Windows Vista and newer. It is not recommended for the best sound quality because of the addition of an additional volume layer.

Disabled Volume

Disabled Volume disables any volume controls. This mode is useful if you send audio to an external device with a hardware volume, and you want to avoid the complexity of two volumes.

Internal Volume

Internal Volume applies volume inside the 64bit JRiver audio engine. This is the highest quality possible software volume. More on 64bit processing here Audio Bitdepth.

Internal Volume is useful in cases when hardware does not offer a volume, which is common with high-end sound cards and DACs.

As with any audio processing, Internal Volume does not work when bitstreaming. It also does not work with web browser based playback like Netflix.

The decibel scale used for Internal Volume is detailed here (with some discussion that led to the scale): http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69939.msg471528#msg471528

Recommendations

There is no best volume mode. The selection depends on your hardware and preference.

The most common choices are System Volume or Internal Volume.

Picking Between System Volume and Internal Volume

Sometimes turning up the hardware volume increases the noise you hear if you play silence (use Tools > Advanced Tools > Create Test Clips to generate silence files to test with, and make sure 'Do not play silence' is not checked in Options > Audio).

If turning up the hardware volume causes you to hear more noise, it makes sense to not turn up that volume more than necessary.

But many times, turning up the hardware volume makes no difference to the noise in a stream of silence. So in these cases, maximize the hardware volume and use Internal Volume so that Media Center has as much headroom as possible and so you get a 64bit volume.

You can test this by putting your ear right next to the speaker and adjust the volume while silence plays.

So in those cases, Internal Volume should provide the best sound quality, especially if you do processing like Room Correction, Bass Management, Convolution, Linkwitz, etc. with Media Center where the extra headroom is useful.