Add pre gain setting to presets

[DazST]

Hi folks, I'd love to see pre-gain settings added as a customisable option in smart presets. As someone who uses the ultra for both 2.1 stereo and headphones (with PEQ) it's a bit of a pain to have keep manually adjusting pre-gain settings.
What say you?

 

[hgo58]

Hi folks, I'd love to see pre-gain settings added as a customisable option in smart presets. As someone who uses the ultra for both 2.1 stereo and headphones (with PEQ) it's a bit of a pain to have keep manually adjusting pre-gain settings.
What say you?

Pre-gain is defined per input to level all inputs. I don't see what is have to do with what output you use.

 

[DazST]

Because at the moment I use different inputs (wifi, usb and optical) across both 2.1 and headphone set ups. I only reduce pre-gain when listening to headphones because they are EQ'd, and it would be good to be able to use presets to change rather than have to do it manually every time I switch between 2.1 and headphones.

 

[hgo58]

Because at the moment I use different inputs (wifi, usb and optical) across both 2.1 and headphone set ups. I only reduce pre-gain when listening to headphones because they are EQ'd, and it would be good to be able to use presets to change rather than have to do it manually every time I switch between 2.1 and headphones.

Why reduce gain just because there is EQ?

Also do you want all pre-gain settings (for each input) available in the Preset?

 

[DazST]

Why reduce gain just because there is EQ?

Also do you want all pre-gain settings (for each input) available in the Preset?

Because the popular headphone PEQs often recommend reducing pre-gain by specified amounts to avoid clipping etc.

And yes, ability to alter pre-gain for multiple inputs for each preset would be great (unless there is an easier way).

 

[hgo58]

Because the popular headphone PEQs often recommend reducing pre-gain by specified amounts to avoid clipping etc.

There are usually headroom to avoid digital clipping with the WiiM.

And if it should really be an issue, you can just use negative gain in the EQ settings.

 

[DazST]

Sorry, I don't follow?

 

[hgo58]

Sorry, I don't follow?

What part you don't understand?

 

[DazST]

Both your points about headroom and adjusting pregain in the EQ

 

[hgo58]

Both your points about headroom and adjusting pregain in the EQ

I did not say pre-gain in the EQ, just gain. Instead of adding positive gain to some frequencies (e.g. bass), you can instead define negative gain to all the other frequencies.

 

[Wiimer]

Because at the moment I use different inputs (wifi, usb and optical) across both 2.1 and headphone set ups. I only reduce pre-gain when listening to headphones because they are EQ'd, and it would be good to be able to use presets to change rather than have to do it manually every time I switch between 2.1 and headphones.

First, set the volume gauge for each input to the same position (e.g.,80%), then use the pre-gain to adjust all inputs to the same volume. Then use the presets to specify the volume of the speaker and headphone outputs.

Does this not work?
Sorry if I misunderstood your request..

 

[Wiimer]

It is recognised that protein is usually not moved once it is set up.

 

[magreen]

This has been a longstanding issue with a kludgy workaround. If you define a set of PEQ filters, such as with REW, you will need a negative preamp so it doesn’t clip. (Unless you restrict yourself to only negative filters, which is unnecessarily restrictive—and just another kludgy workaround). The workaround right now in WiiM is unintuitive, mislabeled, undocumented, and kludgy. You have to set volume limit, and look up on the forums how many percent equals how many dB. And who knows how long it will stay that way with new software releases, given that it’s fairly undocumented.
It should be much more clearly implemented for people using PEQ.

 

[Burnside]

You have to set volume limit, and look up on the forums how many percent equals how many dB. And who knows how long it will stay that way with new software releases, given that it’s fairly undocumented.
It should be much more clearly implemented for people using PEQ.

What's it got to do with firmware releases? As far as I recall the headroom/volume limit setting can be computed within REW based on the PEQ values independent of whatever software is using those values/limits

 

[hgo58]

This has been a longstanding issue with a kludgy workaround. If you define a set of PEQ filters, such as with REW, you will need a negative preamp so it doesn’t clip. (Unless you restrict yourself to only negative filters, which is unnecessarily restrictive—and just another kludgy workaround). The workaround right now in WiiM is unintuitive, mislabeled, undocumented, and kludgy. You have to set volume limit, and look up on the forums how many percent equals how many dB. And who knows how long it will stay that way with new software releases, given that it’s fairly undocumented.
It should be much more clearly implemented for people using PEQ.

There will always be a risk of digital clipping when you can defined both positive pre-gain and (P)EQ gain. That is why I (and some others) have asked @WiiM Team to make the VU meters on Ultra to show correctly (dBFS) and include an indicator for clipping. Both on input (after EQ) and digital output.

A clipping indicator also in the WiiM Home App "Now Playing" page would be optimal.

Ticket #537492.

 

[magreen]

What's it got to do with firmware releases? As far as I recall the headroom/volume limit setting can be computed within REW based on the PEQ values independent of whatever software is using those values/limits

The new software releases point is simply that, if they're not listing it as a feature, but it's an undocumented ability that those in the know are aware of, there's always the possibility that they take it away in future releases, either accidentally or deliberately for one reason or another. When it's an undocumented feature, they never promised that it's even there in the first place.

 

[hgo58]

It should be much more clearly implemented for people using PEQ.

I think this matches the request to @WiiM Team to also display the current volume setting in dBFS (100% equal 0 dBFS).

And yes, documentation is missing for those working with this in an bit more advanced way than the average user.

 

[dominikz]

IMHO pre-gain should be an new configurable attribute in the EQ window, and its value stored with each saved EQ profile.

Ideally WiiM Home App would also automatically calculate the total maximum positive gain of the configured EQ filters - i.e. like REW does with the "Headroom" value in the EQ filter view - so that we can easily counteract this with a corresponding negative pre-gain for that specific EQ filter set, if needed.

This kind of EQ pre-gain was mentioned many times in the forum (e.g. here and here) and I've requested this also via a support ticket; but so far it doesn't seem to be on @WiiM Team radar, unfortunately.

Note however that there are already two workarounds in place to avoid digital clipping caused by EQ in the current WiiM implementation:

• There a built-in automatic limiter at 0dBFS (see here for a test)
• Volume limit (in %) or per-source pre-gain (in dB) can be used as a kind of manual pre-gain setting for EQ to avoid ever hitting the limiter

Neither of the two mechanisms above are ideal, but I guess they explain why a proper pre-gain attribute for EQ is probably not high on the list of implementation priorities.

Lastly, I'd like to add that EQ pre-gain might not be needed by everyone and in every scenario.
E.g. if we rarely max-out the output volume we would also rarely reach the output limiter (even if we have positive EQ gains). In this case pre-gain for EQ might not really be needed in practice.

 

[harkpabst]

IMHO pre-gain should be an new configurable attribute in the EQ window, and its value stored with each saved EQ profile.

Since EQ profiles are defined per input anyway that makes a lot of sense to me!

As does your entire post.

 

[Krabin]

There are usually headroom to avoid digital clipping with the WiiM.

And if it should really be an issue, you can just use negative gain in the EQ settings.

When operating at 100% volume with volume limit set to 100%, input pregain set to 0dB, and EQ off, there is 0dB of headroom. If you turn the EQ on and boost a frequency by 1dB, you can introduce clipping when playing a track that gets above -1dBFS, and if you don't exactly hear harsh clipping, there is a hard limiter that kicks in at -1dBFS to help prevent it, but it can only do so much, and it sound bad itself.

Yeah, sure, we can just use negative gain filters. You think the OP doesn't know this? We can also do other non-intuitive things like limit the volume 1% per 0.6dB or lower the input pregains. The point of this post is we shouldn't have to.

There will always be a risk of digital clipping when you can defined both positive pre-gain and (P)EQ gain. That is why I (and some others) have asked @WiiM Team to make the VU meters on Ultra to show correctly (dBFS) and include an indicator for clipping. Both on input (after EQ) and digital output.

A clipping indicator also in the WiiM Home App "Now Playing" page would be optimal.

Ticket #537492.

I clipping indicator is not a bad but certainly not good enough solution. Why would you want to have to clip before realizing you need to lower pregain?