ReplayGain / Soundcheck on UK Ipod CLassic 160Gb... Too quiet?

[Max Dread]

Hi again

Still doing some research before heading out to buy my Ipod and making a start on ripping my CD collection.

One of the things I was planning to do was write ReplayGain tags for my tracks. I'll be using Foobar Ipod Manager, and this has a feature which converts RG data to Soundcheck.

I've experimented with a few rips and the RG is making the tracks a LOT quieter. The tag info usually states somewhere between -10 to -8dB. IPod's obviously have an upper vol limit. And from what I've read, it's lower for iPods in the UK (/EU?). So I'm interested to hear how people in the UK/EU are getting on with their iPods with Soundcheck on (still interested in the views of those outside the EU)?

I'm using dbPoweramp for all my ripping. There is a setting: "EBU R128 Calculated Gain -23 LUFS Target Volume". I've already changed that to -18. Would putting this higher potentially help? Would there be any downsides?

Cheers

Max

 

[Max Dread]

Hi

Just bumping this up on the off chance anybody has some thoughts on the matter. I want to use ReplayGain/Soundcheck when shuffling all songs for even volume in playback, but I don't want to reduce the volume of the tracks by more than necessary....

Cheers

 

[kornchild2002]

This is something you're going to have to play with. The volume cap has something to do with a European union deciding that personal music devices needed volume caps so people didn't hurt their ears. It's different in the U.S. where our government could care less ('Murica!).

Anyway, there appears to be a way to remove the volume cap if it bothers you. From what I have read, you can turn the volume cap off by going into the volume settings of an iPod classic. I can't confirm this as I don't have a European iPod classic in front of me but it might be something to check out. I can see how using ReplayGain/Soundcheck would reduce the overall volume of music and, combined with the volume cap, would really make it difficult to hear your content. The higher the value, the higher the volume of your music. You don't want to increase it too much though as your music will start to distort even at normal volumes. If you can't remove the volume cap, you'll have to figure out the ReplayGain value that works for your situation.

Keep in mind that not every track will have the same tag info for volume adjustment. It all depends on the gain value of the tracks as-is off of the source CD. Some CDs are louder than others so some tracks will need more adjustment. It's normal to see varying gain values in the track tags. I suggest setting and overall value of -95dB and starting from there. That's what I use with my software and it provides a happy medium between the tracks being loud enough to hear (the default value of -89dB was far too low for my tastes) while also not being too loud to cause distortion.

 

[Max Dread]

there appears to be a way to remove the volume cap if it bothers you. From what I have read, you can turn the volume cap off by going into the volume settings of an iPod classic. I can't confirm this as I don't have a European iPod classic in front of me but it might be something to check out.

I'm currently debating this over on the the Apple forum. Someone said the could turn it off on their EU iPod. I've asked for pics because from most of what I've read this is not possible. It does not make sense as to why Apple would introduce this either. Why would an EU ruling (or what ever happened with the French) make them have to impose the limit, only to remove it a year or two later?

Anyhow, rather than repeat myself more here, if it is allowed, I'll just put this link in instead:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24761670#24761670

Many thanks

Max