Varying sound levels on multiple CD recordings

[theryugobuddy]

I like Random/Shuffle. Sometimes I load 100 CDs of blues and let it play all weekend--

But, the levels of volume and tone changes dramatically between recordings--

Is there a component you can buy that levels out the sound input from different recordings? It seems radio uses systems that accomplish this-- Can you do it at home inexpensively? without losing fidelity?

[Def Leper]

Nothing I've ever heard of that will do this effectively. I suppose you could come up with a program that would analyze relative loudness of different CD's in the digital domain and store an index number by CD (and track if you wanted it) that could be used to adjust relative levels during playback, but to do it in real time is pretty hard. Big jukebox CD players could add this feature pretty easily, and allow the user to program a relative loudness rating for each CD, which would allow the output of the player to be adjusted to compensate for volume differences, but what about CD's with both quiet tracks and loud tracks on the same CD?

The radio station devices you refer to are compressor/limiters, and they are one of the reasons why radio sounds so bad to people with discerning ears. The idea is to destroy dynamic range and keep signals at a high average output, which keeps the transmitted signal as efficient as possible. You can hear it clearly when there are passages with fairly loud sounds separated by little or no sound, when the noise floor is amplified between loud sounds, or when quieter instruments change volume as louder instruments come in. This is called pumping and really destroys the listening experience.

[Guest " "]

i remember this problem when I used to rack the cd's in changers, however, I currently do not have this problem on either my ipod (some times i connect it to an amp), my media center pc (i use both media player and itunes to rip the cd's to mp3), or my onkyo NAS-3.2 media server (basiclly a linux box setup to play mp3's).

So there may be a feature that is built into the mp3 ripping process that levels this out....I rip at no less than a sampling rate of 192, and have recently decided to go with the highest rate of 320.

maybe the other forum members can jump in and report if they have found simular results.

[Jay481985]

that are features that do this with iTunes and such digital software that you can even do it to the .wav file which is the same as the cd file and reburn it on a new cd. But if I remember it right, there are physical machinery that does that and maybe drwho will chime in.

[DrWho]

A properly set up limiter should work very well - the problem is setting it up properly []

They also make "auto mixers" which might work too, though I don't have

much experience with them. They all work slightly differently so it's

important not to go with something that uses feedback detection as the

volume control.