Fear of volume control

 Really has a lot to do with a lot of things. Using dac as volume control, may be losing bits, volume pots have sweet spots, I'd say every active component within our systems have sweet spots. Still, I'd say its current supplied to loudspeaker and listening room that are main determinates. Higher current delivery to loudspeakers really wakes them up, louder volumes can energize room in pleasing manner. No doubt more efficient hearing at louder volumes. The quality of recording also has great bearing on energizing room, the quality recording has larger sound stage, more dimensional imaging, greater dynamics. Louder volumes only serve to further emphasize these qualities. You know you have a good system when you can play loud and not suffer any costs, other than damaging hearing and pissing off neighbors.

Another thing affecting lowest volume one can satisfactorily listen at is ambient and/or steady state noise floor. This would be noise generated internally from house. Add to that outdoor noise which makes it to listening room. The higher this noise floor, the higher volume we'll need. Perhaps lower noise floors late at night are part of what makes late night listening more pleasurable. I'm so fixated on this I turn off my AC, refrigerator in adjoining room, in winter turn furnace way down.

Pauly, thanks for that, explains much in the global sense. And then on the micro front, I find individual recordings or cuts, even on same album/cd (recording levels variable within that single album/cdn) require individual volume settings, something not too loud or soft, somewhere that's just right. On top of that, genre of music demands different volumes, electronic dance music for instance loud, folk not so much. Yeah, the volume control is so damn important, rather than being fearful of it I'm in awe of it.