It's a bit hard to explain in layman's terms. Above the 0dB volume setting the Devialet's in effect make the original signal "louder" by "scaling it up" in a linear way (equal for all frequencies) using DSP and with it sacrificing headroom (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headroom...rocessing)). That's why in general there's a risk of clipping (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(audio)) when one goes over 0dB and this is not advisable, especially with already loud or the modern 'loudness war recordings' that have little headroom. I do believe the Devialet's prevent the actual clipping from happening by using compression so one doesn't burn his loudspeakers (tweeters usually go first ). Compression is also 'bad' for SQ of course since it introduces distortion.
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The Netherlands
The Netherlands