Question ReplayGain and Bluesound Node 2i

RayP

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In the last update of their firmware Bluesound added a new option - Replay Gain. After some investigation I found a Windows program - foobar2000 - which can scan tracks and store TrackGain or AlbumGain against each track. This is stored as extra metadata leaving the original recording untouched.

The reason I've investigated this is because of large volume differences between my vinyl albums (recorded onto DAT 30 years ago and subsequently re-recorded as WAV before being saved as FLAC) and my ripped CDs.

Analysing a couple of albums it showed a -8dB reduction required on a Hi-Res album but a +8dB adjustment required on some vinyl recordings. No wonder I was diving for the volume control when listening to different music.

I've scanned a couple of albums and applied the metadata to each and the results are a great improvement. It looks like modern CDs are recorded to a higher volume level than in earlier days which makes this Replay Gain option so useful.

I've chosen Album Gain and set it in the BlueSound Audio menu. Has anyone else tried this?
 
In the last update of their firmware Bluesound added a new option - Replay Gain.
Hmmm, as far as I'm aware Replay Gain functionality has been in BluOS for the last five years or more.

I've been using it ever since I bought my Node 2 and all my ripped album FLACs have the had the tags applied by passing through Foobar. Overall I'm very pleased with the results as it does exactly what it says on the tin with no adverse impact on signal quality - well, to my ears as least.

It's a pity that the volume normalisation methods used by the various streaming services don't seem to work anything like as well since there are massive swings in the perceived volumes of different tracks of all the providers I have trialled.
 
@mseve1 , oh, my mistake. I thought it was a new feature. :facepalm:

It’s reassuring another owner is pleased with the feature. Do you use Album Gain or Track Gain? I don’t subscribe to any of the services. I could see that being a problem.

I was going to apply it to only my vinyl-sourced recordings but may well do it for the lot in slow time. It’s a quick process providing the music is moved to a local HDD. Very slow accessing my NAS box.
 
@RayP - As I only ever listen to whole albums it makes sense for me to use 'Album Gain' to normalise levels.

All my CD albums rips are made on a desktop PC using EAC , after which I tidy up the standard metadata tags and artwork using MP3Tag and finally add replay gain tags by means of Foobar 2000. Copies are then moved over to NAS and other media but the 'masters' remain on the local HDD which can be subsequently edited if/when issues are found with the metadata.

Whilst it may seem like a daunting task to retrospectively populate Replay Gain tags on all your library, batch processing capability within Foobar allows you to do this en masse, or at least in large chunks, by using the function => ReplayGain => Scan selection as album (by tags).

Note that you would have to perform a full index rebuild in BluOS for your Node 2i to pick up the newly appended tags.
 
@mseve1 , I’ve found it takes a few seconds scanning an album. Once I get into a routine I don’t anticipate it taking too long. Compared to adding meta-data by hand to 90 hours of vinyl recorded into DAT it’s a walk in the park.

Yes, rebuilding index is done aft each session. :thumbsup:
 
After a couple of days work the task Is completed. All my music - whether sourced from vinyl or CD - now has a consistent sound level. I suppose I was in a different situation to most having two distinct sources for my FLAC music with very different sound levels.

The analogue source sound levels needed boosting by around 8dB whereas the digital ones needed reducing by a similar amount. Without this work the difference in volume levels was a major pain.

All done and thanks to the author of foobar2000. :clap:
 
Does this permanently adjust the levels of the tracks or is it just for playback on foobar? If permanent, sounds like something I could use.
 
Does this permanently adjust the levels of the tracks or is it just for playback on foobar? If permanent, sounds like something I could use.
@DefDave - the digital audio files remain exactly the same apart from the addition of a couple of metadata tags which Foobar adds to allow BluOS to adjust the gain for each file (track) as it is played. Once the tags are in place the ReplayGain functionality can be turned on or off as required in the player.
 
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Right. No good to me then - no BluOS. Thanks.
 
@mseve1 , thanks for answering the questions. I’d advise anyone who has their own collection of music to try this process. It’s resolved a problem that’s been bugging me for several years. In the end, it’s a simple, elegant solution. Metadata tags are a god send. 👏😁
 
been using replay gain on my squeezebox touch for years. I use foobar to scan as a complete album as i tend to listen to my music a lot of the time on random shuffle and the differences between each song was always huge. Constantly turning the volume up or down each track was ruining the enjoyment of just sitting back and listening. It was always an annoyance to me that Google Play Music didnt support replay gain and stopped me using that service.
 
Pardon, does this also work when using Spotify Premium? I never used the replay gain options. If so what do people use when streaming music from Amazon, Spotify...?
 
Pardon, does this also work when using Spotify Premium? I never used the replay gain options. If so what do people use when streaming music from Amazon, Spotify...?
I can't see how it would. I had to process each album through foobar to add extra metadata for the volume adjustment. Can't see how that is possible with any streaming service.
 
Can't see how that is possible with any streaming service.
Well Spotify has a user configurable 'Loudness Normalisation' to do just that.
Like ReplayGain this process uses metadata to change the gain of the track when it's played but it's based on the LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale) measurement standard. Whilst it seems to work most of the time there are still sometimes large large variations in the levels of some tracks which suggests there are issues with the consistency of their metadata.
 
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@mseve1 , somewhat different to the Loudness button we used to have on amps then! :D
 
I can't see how it would. I had to process each album through foobar to add extra metadata for the volume adjustment. Can't see how that is possible with any streaming service.
Why not? For example, the Amazon HD, Deezer, Qobuz & TIDAL music streaming services all provide FLAC encoded audio file track streams for their Hi-Fi tiers, so no reason why they couldn't do the same with their audio file metadata.
 
Why not? For example, the Amazon HD, Deezer, Qobuz & TIDAL music streaming services all provide FLAC encoded audio file track streams for their Hi-Fi tiers, so no reason why they couldn't do the same with their audio file metadata.
But do they? Just because something is technically possible doesn’t mean it’s available. As I don’t use any of those services it’s not something I can check.
 
Ah, that's a totally different question - your post appeared to question a streaming service's ability to obtain and/or provide the necessary loudness normalisation data similar to how you did with foobar2000.

There is mention of Roon getting volume levelling data from TIDAL & Qobuz, eg:
Tidal and intermittent working volume levelling
Qobuz Volume Leveling [Implementation Underway]

Your Bluesound Node also appears to receive the volume levelling data (at least from TIDAL):
Tidal and loudness normalization in Node II.


Having said that, technically I don't believe that the volume levelling data provided by both TIDAL & Qobuz is actually in the FLAC file track metadata, so you're (sort of) correct in that respect:
- TIDAL provides its loudness normalisation data via its official API;
- Qobuz did provide its normalisation data via a 'special' data dump service for Roon, though it was (as of November last year) working towards providing it via its official API (see Official Qobuz Issues Thread).
 
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@Cebolla , feel free to discuss volume levelling for streaming on this topic. I simply raised it as a fix for my two sources of stored music with large differences in volume. I can't believe streaming services would have anything like the same differences.
 
Not really, I only wanted to point out that that volume levelling does exist in streaming services too. Ironically, I was 'accused' of not appreciating such a few months ago and was just repeating some of my response in that thread:
Question - Cambridge Audio CXN V2 - Chromecast vs in-built Tidal

Granted, the volume difference is unlikely to compete with the (possible) randomness of personal needle drops (especially when taken with kit from 30 years ago) vs the consistency of current CD ripping software, never mind any differences between the original vinyl albums themselves & their equivalent CDs. :)
 

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