ARCAM among first to implement Dolby Volume

Arcam's eagerly awaited AVR600 will be among the first receivers in production to offer the new Dolby Volume processing. The new processing uses advanced algorithms to reduce the large volume increase that often results when normal broadcast TV programs break for commercials. Also, to look after those with noise sensitive neighbours, Dolby Volume adjusts tonal balance to compensate for the ear's inadequacies at low volume and thus present a much more realist tonal balance when listening quietly.

These two issues have been tackled before of course with varying degrees of success. Many will remember the old "Loudness" control on amplifiers from years gone by. This added a boost to both low and high frequency extremes to help out at low volume levels. Where the loudness control was rather crude Dolby's implementation is constantly adapting itself to be less intrusive while giving a useful increase in tonal balance.

Some systems use broadband compression to kill of the gain changes mentioned earlier resulting in massive tonal and soundstage changes when a load noise is present in the sound track. However, Dolby Volume uses multiple compressors per channel, spread across a number of frequency bands thus vastly reducing the dramatic damage usually associated with broadband techniques

The AVR600 offers Dolby Volume with variable settings and is selectable on a "per input" basis.