Safe Headroom
By default, the output is lowered when the Safe Headroom feature is enabled. SoundID Reference cuts and boosts certain frequencies to compensate for the inconsistencies in a particular output's frequency response. Boosting certain frequencies creates a risk that the digital audio will peak above 0 dB and clip. The Safe Headroom feature lowers the output volume by the maximum peak in the correction curve to prevent the output from clipping (prevents gain-staging related audio distortion).
You can disable it at the risk of introducing clipping by turning off the Safe Headroom feature and turning the volume fader all the way up.
1 comment
I have SoundID Reference. I have safe headroom enabled. It allows a max gain of -6.6. The problem is that half the time when I turn my preamp with internal dac on (which is connected usb to my laptop with SoundID), as soon as SoundID sees the dac and the laptop connects to it, safe headroom gain level sets itself down to -10.0. The allowable max is still -6.6 so I can move it back to that with safe headroom still enabled. WHY does SoundID keep lowering the gain to -10??