Software Vs Hardware Audio. Encoders play an important role in maintaining a high-quality live stream. It is my understanding that in order to keep the music in its original state of quality that the listener must leave all software volume controls at 100 and use Hardware volume knobs to reduce the volume of the music without disturbing the bit-depth.
Software interacts with you the hardware youre using and with hardware that exists elsewhere. The software is what makes the hardware work or lets you get things done such as writing documents with Microsoft Word or playing a Solitaire. You can touch hardware but you cannot touch software.
A photo-sharing software program for example on your PC or phone works with you and your hardware to take a photo and then communicates with servers and other devices on the internet to show that photo on your friends devices.
Hardware is a physical parts computer that cause processing of data. Software volume control might have an impact on the audible performance but with modern 24bit DACs it often works quite well. In digital audio the signal is split up into distinct samples taken thousands of times per second and bit depth is the number of bits that are used to describe each sample. Hardware is the tangible component that is associated physically with the computer system whereas software is the intangible component of the computer system.