VLC especially does not do this - it uses software volume control (by default, I think you might be able to change this on some platforms). It also makes it hard to select exactly 100% volume, by allowing the volume control to go over 100% without any kind of detent. The odds that you're getting bit-perfect audio out of VLC is extremely poor.
Side note - bit-perfect is very important when you want to listen to surround-encoded files (AC3, DTS) on a surround system over SPDIF. SPDIF only has bandwidth for two uncompressed PCM channels, so the way it works is basically compressed audio data pretending to be a PCM stream. If anything messes with the stream - if you touch the software volume knob - your surround system will start outputting digital static at maximum volume.
Side note - bit-perfect is very important when you want to listen to surround-encoded files (AC3, DTS) on a surround system over SPDIF. SPDIF only has bandwidth for two uncompressed PCM channels, so the way it works is basically compressed audio data pretending to be a PCM stream. If anything messes with the stream - if you touch the software volume knob - your surround system will start outputting digital static at maximum volume.