Question reference CD Volume

[Dawgincontrol]

Is there a receiver/preamp/amp or a cd player/DAC that balances the volume between various cd's (similar to what a burn program does with volume maximizing)?

I do playlists through my computer and various cd's have volume levels that drive me crazy. This includes store-bought and burned cd's. I don't care about the price as I am upgrading throughout, but wonder if any maker addresses this. Volume change as I listen to Christmas music this morning is distracting. For instance, the "Chicago" Christmas CD seems louder than others.

Any help would be appreciated!!

[Resident Loser]

...that's why there's a volume control on your remote...or at least some sort of control on your head unit...

Something like that would be costly to implement and definitely non-audiophile in nature...heck, some of 'em won't use/don't have tone controls on their gear much less something that obtrusive...you basically want auto-gain riding. Most pre/control centers can't even balance the various sources; something the nature of your request has too many software variables to be simple and/or cost effective...it goes beyond that, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

jimHJJ(...too many bells and whistles already IMO...)

[Dawgincontrol]

...that's why there's a volume control on your remote...or at least some sort of control on your head unit...

Something like that would be costly to implement and definitely non-audiophile in nature...heck, some of 'em won't use/don't have tone controls on their gear much less something that obtrusive...you basically want auto-gain riding. Most pre/control centers can't even balance the various sources; something the nature of your request has too many software variables to be simple and/or cost effective...it goes beyond that, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

jimHJJ(...too many bells and whistles already IMO...)

Changing the volume manually is not what I'm looking for. Going from one source cd to another while playing a music list makes for a wish for balance. It really seems to me that there would be some way to scan each cd and go from memory and make it workable. Or a maximum gain switch an an amp. Or some computer hook-up that remembers the volume of each cd. I don't think it would be cost prohibitive. It is all algorhythms anyway.

Plus, we can dream can't we? Maybe nobody has just ever thought of it.

[RJW1138]

What you're looking for is a device to normalize all your CD audio, and it's actually not a bad idea. As for as I know though, there's no such product on the market.

The product would pretty much have to be encorporated into a CD player, because as you already know, it's not a real-time process. It has to be able to read through the track or disc ahead of time before starting to play. The product would have to scan through the track, or album (possibly a setting), and determine what the maximum or average level is (again, probably a setting), and then adjust the output gain accordingly (just selecting the single gain amount necessary to bring up or down the disc's average/maximum level). In the end, everything that gets played back has either the same average or maximum level.

I disagree about what Resident Loser said, such a product is not non-audiophile in nature, and could provide the exact same fidelity as without.

If you wanted to do this in real-time without knowing the data that's coming, you're looking at a dynamic range compressor, but that's a different beast.

Anyways, bottom line is, I don't know of one that exists, but never stop dreaming Dawg!

[Resident Loser]

I disagree about what Resident Loser said, such a product is not non-audiophile in nature, and could provide the exact same fidelity as without.

If you wanted to do this in real-time without knowing the data that's coming, you're looking at a dynamic range compressor, but that's a different beast.

Foist, the entire quote is:

"Something like that would be costly to implement and definitely non-audiophile in nature...heck, some of 'em won't use/don't have tone controls on their gear much less something that obtrusive..."

To some, anything beyond the minimalist mindset is verboten...hence the "tone control" bit, filters, equalizers anything beyond gold-plated inputs/outputs, OFC single-crystal internal wiring, hospital grade/mil spec(or better) electronics is considered "non-audiophile" by some. Someone who has spent the equivalent of the GNP of a developing country on a hand-built SET amp and passive attenuator is not in the least interested in the circuitry required to balance the volume level of discs...

Any sort of compression, single ended processing, companding, auto-anything will have the possibility of sonic artifacts, whether it be directly on the signal as in "pumping" or "swishing" or some sort of digital hash from the controlling circuit.

What would be done for a source that contains a varied dynamic range...for example the "1812 Overture" which ends with repeated firing of canon? You would need a circuit that could cataloge and identify EVERY disc(which would require it to "listen" in real-time and arbitrarily determine the overall volume which depends on dynamic range) otherwise it's a simple compressor...a definite audiophile no-no...and that's only for YOUR source material...Who sets the parameters? The listener? The processor? AGCs and the like have been shunned historically by recordists who favored manual gain riding.

I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done...I mean some folks are happy with the "fidelity" of what sounds like digital cr@p to others simply for the sake of convenience...so go figure. It's just not an easy thing to do and with little or no consumer weeping and gnashing of teeth over it or similar "audiophile" outcry, I think it will be a long time coming.

jimHJJ(...market demand drives the bells and whistles...)

[RJW1138]

You're confusing me RL. I'm not talking about COMPRESSING, I'm just talking about a way of NORMALIZING the output through a fixed gain amount. I even mention a compressor, and say that that's not what I'm talking about, and you even quoted that. You should read my post again.

What I'm getting at is that a gain adjustment at the end of your "CD Player w/Normalization" does not inherently degrade sound quality. All CD players already have amp circuitry after the DAC stage to bring the level up to some standardized level (usually 2v). This could use a variable amount of gain (on a per song or per album basis, not continuously changing!) to adjust that level accordingly, instead of just being a fixed amount, to normalize the song or album up to either the desired average or maximum level.

Bottom line, I don't think you understood my post.

[Woochifer]

Onkyo has their Intellivolume feature on their receivers, which purportedly equalizes the levels between the different sources. But, I'm not sure if the feature works at equalizing the level between different CDs.

Generally, the trend right now is to bump up the levels as high as possible at the mastering stage with pop recordings, and compress the recording so that the playback level can stay consistently high without the peaks pushing out beyond the digital zero limit. But, with CDs there are no established standards on how high or low the levels should go. You generally have more consistency with the prevailing levels on DVD soundtracks.

Otherwise, the only recourse you have with playlists at least is to use the volume equalizing features that are built into several of the CD ripping/burning programs out there.

[bloosqr]

Is there a receiver/preamp/amp or a cd player/DAC that balances the volume between various cd's (similar to what a burn program does with volume maximizing)?

I do playlists through my computer and various cd's have volume levels that drive me crazy. This includes store-bought and burned cd's. I don't care about the price as I am upgrading throughout, but wonder if any maker addresses this. Volume change as I listen to Christmas music this morning is distracting. For instance, the "Chicago" Christmas CD seems louder than others.

Any help would be appreciated!!

I'm a little confused by the question and/or the responses to the question which make this sound likes this is an esoteric feature. If I am not mistaken you are looking for a volume normalizer right? i.e. basically the software should scan ahead a song find the average db (or variation of the theme) and use that to renormalize the volume to a user defined setting?

Isn't this what itunes Soundcheck feature does? Under Preferences->Playback if you tick the box it "Automatically sets song playback volume to the same level".

XMMS and winamp all have plugins that do volume normalization as well.

[Dawgincontrol]

I use Music Library software which "runs" my Sony ES jukeboxes from my computer. I have over 600 cd's. With this software, it plays the cd from the cd players with the tracks you choose. The music does not go through the computer, it goes through my receiver. Only the track list comes from my computer. Unfortunately the music industry records their cd's (not computer tracks) at various levels.

I want something that can scan all the disks output ratios and "normalize" the volume. Whether it be a stand-alone DAC, a receiver, or a cd player/transport. There should be something that equalizes the volume of different cd's. Not tracks form a computer. I do understand the hard disk usage. And maybe that's the way to go for playlists. But, I was hoping for something easier and simpler.

[bloosqr]

I use Music Library software which "runs" my Sony ES jukeboxes from my computer. I have over 600 cd's. With this sodtware ot plays the cd from the cd players with the tracks you choose. The music does not go through the computer, it goes through my receiver. Only the track list comes from my computer. Unfortunately the music industry records their cd's (not computer tracks) at various levels.

I want something that can scan all the disks output ratios and "normalize" the volume. Whether it be a stand-alone DAC, a receiver, or a cd player/transport. There should be something that equalizes the volume of different cd's. Not tracks form a computer. I do understand the hard disk usage. And maybe that's the way to go for playlists. But, I was hoping for something easier and simpler.

I think the *easiest* way to do this is move your music to a hard drive/software based solution so your playlists and the music are in the same place. (As an added bonus you wont have jitter issues ). I think the reason that this is so common in the hard drive world is that the random access and/or "look ahead" of ones music collection is trivially performed so it is much easier to work out how to do volume normalization. Hard drives are pretty cheap and you could even go lossless so you get cd quality w/ prices these days and you can still use your receiver as your dac/amp by using the digital out of your computer.

That said if your computer can access your record cd collection digitally you could probably do an "on the fly hack" as long as your computer can also set the volume of your receiver, through your jukebox program.

The reason why this is more difficult in hardware is to do it right it needs the lookahead for the entire track rather than riding the gain on the fly, i.e. a compressor.

I think there isn't a market for what you are asking for as it is somewhat dependent on the fact that you have the sony jukeboxes and most people w/ "playlists" commonly have the hard drive solution. The closest facsimile is probably a compressor but that is problematic for all the reasons everyone has pointed out.