Hey!

I've been audio engineering for a few years now, but mostly in professional studios where these kinds of things are already set up (or, at least I trust them to be). But I've recently bought myself a little home-studio for fun, practice and because it keeps the dream of one day being able to run my own business alive.

I have a Lexicon Lambda soundcard and for monitoring, I've simply plugged my Logitech speakers into the Phones Out on the Lambda as I wait for my next paycheck to roll in so I can afford me some HS8s.

The Logitech speakers are great for playback, though, and there's a noticeable difference now that I have a dedicated soundcard to playback in 48kHz.

The Logitech speakers have a huge single-knob controller for adjusting their output. Will I get clearer sound by turning the Logitech volume knob up, or by turning the Lambda Output Level up?

As far as I can tell, turning the Output Level up increases the volume and gives clearer sound, whereas turning the Volume up just increases the volume but doesn't necessarily makes quieter sounds easier to hear. I'm afraid that I'm fooling myself just because I'm much happier with my recent purchase than with my shitty old computer speakers.

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question to ask, but I'm not used to setting hardware up and I probably lack some theory as for how sound works travelling from computer to sound card to speakers. If anyone could point me in the right direction for learning on my own, that would be super cool, too.

Thanks for reading through my potentially stupid post and any help. :)