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by unbalancedevh 1401 days ago
And speaking of audio, make the volume control a real analog knob that's directly in the output circuit, so when I quickly spin it down it immediately goes down. Not some encoder that's trying to rationalize how far down I really meant to turn it, with an inevitable delay.
2 comments

> make the volume control a real analog knob that's directly in the output circuit

I don't miss noisy potentiometers :D

And having a bus with user operations being streamed to it means that designers can choose mappings and behaviors late.

The issue is the delay. I have a lot of amplifiers with knobs that are perceptually instant, even if they really are encoders behind the scene. Stuff is fast enough now that there's no reason for delay. I've built control systems that use encoders that operate at 1000Hz over slower embedded networks than are in modern cars.

And stop having bizarrely chunky steps between volume levels, too. It annoys me regularly that so many of my digital devices have less than a dozen steps between minimum and maximum, leaving me with either too quiet or too loud, and nothing in-between.
Half a decibel per step is a reasonable chunk; average perceptible change is 1dB but sometimes it's better than that.

Figure maybe 65dB of useful dynamic range in a car + 10dB of range needed based on levels of the recording. That implies you want about 150 steps.

Go ahead and display a number between 1-30 if you want-- that's probably good for usability. I can find "13" and be close to what I typically want. Just, have the actual control surface move 5 steps per number so that I can fine tune.