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One of those irritating technical things

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I was watching my local educational access channel this morning while walking on my treadmill. I thump pretty hard when I walk so I turned the TV up. That’s when I really started thinking about the volume control feedback. Why the hell does the volume go from 0 to 63? As a computer-savvy person I can sort of understand it, but come on now, 0 to 63? One of our televisions goes from 0 to 50. Ok, 50 is a ‘round’ number (at least to us who count using base-10). I don’t like 0 to 50 and would personally prefer 0 to 100 (still takes one byte of storage if that’s the problem) because then I might translate that to a percentage. But, ick. Is this worse than a stereo that goes to 11?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2005
    My home stereo goes from NEGATIVE 100 (quiet) to 0 (loud). Figure that one out.
  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2005
    Better yet, when a loud mouth commercial comes on that is twice as loud as the show, why doesn't the volume automatically compensate. Common, my car radio even does that.
  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2005
    Dave is correct. Traditional VU (volume unit) meters display 0 db at "maximum" volume, with +3 db "overdrive" and -60 or -80 db "minimum". Since decibels are logarithmic -100 db is very, very quiet--quieter than most amps can manage due to tiny amounts of residual hum.

    Sound pressure level requires a 3 db change to be perceptible, which requires double the amplifier power. Doubling the sound pressure level requires 10 times as much power.
  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2005
    I just remember that great moment in Spinal Tap where the guy is asked why his amp has 11 as max. The answer is that every rocker plays at 10 so 11 is even louder!