Exactly. Digital volume is just smoke and mirrors. Turn it as high as you like - it's not going to distort. Any time you're going through a DA converter and con

Exactly. Digital volume is just smoke and mirrors. Turn it as high as you like - it's not going to distort. Any time you're going through a DA converter and controlling the volume after the conversion (at which point it's an analog manipulation) - which most OS-level volume controllers do - you should generally stay in the 50-75 range depending on the quality of you hardware. Some soundcards might break up at 25%, others might be okay at 100%. I find that 50% is usually safe, and any distortion at 75% is subtle and not offending.