Analogue clipping from digital sources

@ltmandella : care to elaborate? Or point to relevant sources? Pls don’t make unsubstantiated assertions when posting. Thanks.

@ltmandella If I am not mistaken, you are referring to a problem resulting from ‘capping’ peaks during digital recording leading to distortion during the DA conversion, i.e. not clipping although it resembles audibly. This seems to be yet another roadside accident from the loudness wars; thanks for pointing it out.

That is a mastering problem which in my mind cannot be addressed through any means by audiophile consumers (unless they decide to use low resolution equipment) So I don‘t yet understand what your point is in the context of this discussion

Thank you for this: I am using upsampling, clearly heard clipping like noise and the cure is to lower the output from the server. Learned something new!

I am on InnuOS Sense feeding into the Antelope Zodiac Platinum DAC and believe I can only use the Sense imbedded attenuator. Any other suggestion? Many thanks for your help, much appreciated!

BTW: this subject should find a wider audience.

Here is @atmasphere on a different thread addressing my topic:

“IMO Phillips and Sony made a stupid mistake when they set the Redbook spec to 2V output with digital gear, more than many amps need to overload. I think their reasoning must have been that once you hear digital, you'll never want to hear any other source. Obviously if that was the thinking, it was grossly incorrect.

A smarter thing to do would have been to allow for a lower level DAC output in addition to the regular line section that's built into all DACs and CD players. This way if you happen to have a phono, tuner, tape machine or other source (perhaps video) you could use a regular preamp and get maximum fidelity....”

So in addition with @erik_squires insightful comment, there is an overall issue along the chain

In my read a good DAC analogue stage may only need an additional preamp where switching to analogue sources is required. Absent that the pre adds distortion.

thank you to @atmasphere and @erik_squires for explaining an obviously important issue that hasn’t been sufficiently discussed