Sudden Volume Increase When Using MoonRiver2 DAC

[HeHeHeeeeee]

Issue description:

I encountered a serious issue while using the MoonRiver2 DAC connected to my phone to listen to music. Suddenly, the volume became extremely loud, almost deafening, which could potentially harm my hearing. I’m not sure what caused this problem.

After some testing, I found that the issue occurs regardless of whether hardware decoding is enabled or not. The volume drastically increases when playing specific songs.

Logs:

Upload description: HeHeHeeeeee

Additional information:

 
就是下面这首歌
 

Reproduction steps:

 
Using the MoonDrop2 DAC adapter to connect a phone and headphones, open the app and play 4-5 songs, each for about 2 seconds, to test the volume levels. Even though I set the volume to the lowest, when a specific song is played, the sound suddenly becomes what I consider to be the loudest.
 

Media provider:

Subsonic

Screenshots:

     

[Tolriq]

Can you upload that song to https://upload.symfonium.app so can see if I can repro something ?

You are not using replay gain and I do not see anything related to volume in the logs.
So maybe a decoder issue.

[HeHeHeeeeee]

Sure, I also suspect it’s a decoder issue.

[Tolriq]

Well the songs are incredibly loud and saturated, you have no replay gain tags to lower them and in all cases have replay gain disabled.

The level from Symfonium are proper for those files in all my tests here.

You can use Symfonium EQ Limiter settings to workaround your files audio level differences.

[HeHeHeeeeee]

I turned on the limiter and found that as soon as it was activated, the sound became extremely loud, regardless of whether replay gain was on or off, reaching maximum volume, just like with those specific songs I tested before. But this time, any song can reach a very high volume, although it can be manually turned down. If it’s not a decoder issue, I believe the problem lies here. My decoder seems to be plugged into an interface I’ve never used before, and the volume automatically defaults to maximum; I’m not sure if that’s related, but I’ve used the phone’s interface many times before. The previous specific songs became very loud, and I think it might be due to inadvertently calling the limiter’s related program.

[Tolriq]

If the limiter is not checked then it’s not used.

If enabling it change your device behavior then it’s your device that applies things when it wants without it, and when enabling it, this prevent the device from messing with the volume.

So you should probably enabled the limiter, properly configure it (See for example https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/audio-dynamics-101-compressors-limiters-expanders-and-gates.html)

You can also use negative pre amp to workaround your device using full volume when the EQ is enabled.

[HeHeHeeeeee]

I think it’s still an issue with the decoder. Maybe I should switch to another one, as this decoder has poor drivers. Thank you for your help!

[Tolriq]

Well if you think you know better.

But there’s no drivers, and the code is provided by Google so I can assure you that the decoding part works fine.

From all your data, your issue is your device that does something sometimes, and from your previous delete post, this mostly confirm.

By enabling the EQ your device no more mess with the data and you are really in control and so can control what happens to configure to your needs.

[HeHeHeeeeee]

What I mean is to replace my DAC device. Here, I like to refer to the DAC as a decoder. Your software is really well done, with many features and a pretty nice interface.

[Tolriq]

You really should try to use the EQ if it workaround your device this is a valid usage. (As this can be a device issue and not a DAC issue).

You can use the auto loading of the EQ settings depending on the connected output, so only apply the fix when that dac is connected and not for speakers or for direct headphones connections.