Hi,
A reason to exist “Apply to decoder” menu item is historical reason. Currently, “Apply to decoder” is enabled (checked) by default.
There are almost no difference between checked and unchecked for normal use.
Following is a simplified data processing flow in TuneBrowser:
- File => Decoder (=> DSP) [1] => Buffer => Player [2] => Device
ATT processing is placed at
- [1]: Enable “Apply to decoder”
- [2]: Disable “Apply to decoder”
Advantage of case[1]
- In case[1] , ATT is applied to FLOAT type data of lossy formats like MP3 and AAC. So there is a possibility to be able to rescue clipped data.
- Case[2] data is usually INT type based on device format, and clipped peaks are already lost even if ATT decreases levels.
Advantage of case[2]
- When user changes ATT level while playing, case[1] should discard all decoded data in buffer, so playback stops once.
- Case[2] applies ATT level to the output data directly. Playback does not stop.
Earlier version of TuneBrowser was implemented with case [2] only. Because ATT was designed as one of volume control.
I think the advantage of case[2] is not important for most users. So “Apply to decoder” is enabled by default now. Perhaps I’ll remove this menu item in future.
Regards