[Justin Uthadude]

I don't use replay gain on my home rig, but on my portable I use replay gain. Quite frequently I don't have time to listen to whole albums while walking around the Home Depot or sitting at the coffee shop. Also, a loud song out of the blue isn't conducive to good driving. Track replay gain when ripping your songs to your portable doesn't affect bit perfectness any more than your volume knob does.
.

 

[XaNE]

Yes for everything; makes the transitions from ambient to death metal a little smoother.

 

[sonci]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effusion /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've recently discovered some interesting issues while using and not using replaygain in Foobar2000; I'm thinking that the culprit may be my DAC chip, but the verdict is still out. sonci what is your PC feeding, external/internal DAC? I too get a lot of clipping when I don't use replaygain; I'm estimating around 60% of my flac files. Like others, I prefer not using it, but it is now almost essential. When I first started using Foobar and ripping my CDs to flac, I tweaked with the output settings quite a bit to try to get close to bit-perfect output as I could. I did notice the clipping then and the immediate solution for me was to lower Foobar's volume control about a tenth of the way down from max. I left this setting for quite a while, until I started to think that the digital attenuation was negatively affecting the sound (most run everything at max on their PCs). My problem is that running the volume at max allows the clipping to come through; even if I lower Foobar's preamp or run DSPs. The only thing that prevents this clipping when the volume is at max is the replaygain. Anyone else ever run into this same problem?

I have 2 pc, one with EMU 1212M which never clips, and the other with A Prelude master volume maxed, foobar volume maxed, which clips everytime a peak song goes over 0dB,
never used any dsp, and -6dB limiter doesn`t affect clipping, maybe because I use ASIO output,
usually it happens with modern recordings which are badly compressed, never with jazz or classical,
I also tried lowering the master volume to 80%, but believe it or not I sense a decrease in clearity and detail, while with ReplayGain sound is the same just not clipping,
so, unless, they dont start to master albums as they should,
we can fight the loudness war with ReplyGain..

 

[Effusion]

sonci, do you happen to know the difference between the 2 cards that you are running? In terms of sample rate and bit depth? Are these running as your DAC or only the transport? I believe the Prelude is a set 24bit at 96, but I think the Emu can be set; not sure as I don't have either.

Did turning the volume down on Foobar fix the clipping without replaygain, even though the sound quality decreased?

I also agree, max volume does increase clarity and replaygain seems to currently only be the option for us. I'm wondering if the bit depth (less headroom) or possibly some form of jitter from a sensitive transport might be increasing this issue in my system...

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effusion /img/forum/go_quote.gif I agree and it is very strange from what I currently understand. I'm only using the Advanced Limiter... I heard that this doesn't effect the output like attenuation does, there is no difference with it on or off. My DAC is 16 bit/44.1 and that is what I'm running from my transport - motherboard optical. Some of tracks are hot recordings, but not all. Most just shouldn't clip this much and do not do so on other redbook systems. Not really sure why... if you have any suggestions/ideas or info on replaygain, it would be greatly appreciated!

Well a limiter is usually used for just that imposing a limit on the output but they are really not that useful for playing back audio IMO.

There must be some other issue with your system that produces this clipping.
Are these recording you made yourself or just music that you have in your collection? Your music shouldn't clip as much as you're suggesting it does.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

One of the theoretical reasons for using replay gain to reduce clipping distortion is addressed in part here: Issues with 0dBFS+ Levels On Digital Audio Playback Systems

Using replay gain to lower the levels of signals that are hitting or very near 0dBFS could improve sound quality with some DACs. But it gets in to signal processing theory that is beyond my understanding to be able to weed out what is pseudo-babble and what is real engineering.

There are also issues of going above 0dBFS when decoding MP3 files. Due to rounding and other processing an MP3 decoded sample can go above 0dBFS. Using replay gain to get that down to below 0dBFS could be a good thing.

 

[Effusion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif One of the theoretical reasons for using replay gain to reduce clipping distortion is addressed in part here: Issues with 0dBFS+ Levels On Digital Audio Playback Systems Using replay gain to lower the levels of signals that are hitting or very near 0dBFS could improve sound quality with some DACs. But it gets in to signal processing theory that is beyond my understanding to be able to weed out what is pseudo-babble and what is real engineering. There are also issues of going above 0dBFS when decoding MP3 files. Due to rounding and other processing an MP3 decoded sample can go above 0dBFS. Using replay gain to get that down to below 0dBFS could be a good thing.

Thanks for the info and the link! :darthsmile

It appears that my DAC is somewhat touchy and for now, replaygain is the best option. I'll have to read up and come to a better conclusion on why this would be.

ROBSCIX - all of the recordings are from Redbook CDs, most are in flac and a few are in MP3 at 320. Yes, I agree, most of these tracks just shouldn't be clipping like they are. I find it very strange that only using the digital attenuation or replaygain prevented the clipping, but it seems that my DAC is just fussy with the signal.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[sonci]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Effusion /img/forum/go_quote.gif sonci, do you happen to know the difference between the 2 cards that you are running? In terms of sample rate and bit depth? Are these running as your DAC or only the transport? I believe the Prelude is a set 24bit at 96, but I think the Emu can be set; not sure as I don't have either. Did turning the volume down on Foobar fix the clipping without replaygain, even though the sound quality decreased? I also agree, max volume does increase clarity and replaygain seems to currently only be the option for us. I'm wondering if the bit depth (less headroom) or possibly some form of jitter from a sensitive transport might be increasing this issue in my system...

I think the distortion and clipping due to maxed volume is a limitation of the audio card, or probably of a software limitation from reaching 0dB,

I really like your gear, dont know the Paradisea, but I`ve heard only good,
If you`re using your motherboard digital out, then I think you should upgrade to smth better, even if it gone clip anyway

Best digital out I know is the ESI Juli, but anyway try smth you can return..

PS: Try to change from ASIO4All also,

 

[Effusion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think the distortion and clipping due to maxed volume is a limitation of the audio card, or probably of a software limitation from reaching 0dB, I really like your gear, dont know the Paradisea, but I`ve heard only good, If you`re using your motherboard digital out, then I think you should upgrade to smth better, even if it gone clip anyway Best digital out I know is the ESI Juli, but anyway try smth you can return.. PS: Try to change from ASIO4All also,

Thanks!

These are some good suggestions... I've considered going with a dedicated sound card to take advantage of their ASIO drivers and the "possibility" of better handling of any jitter issues. I remember that the Juli card was my favorite when I was researching, but it all seemed like overkill at the time. Since I'll be building a new computer rig soon, sounds like moving away from the motherboard could provide several benefits now and in the future.

I do really enjoy the Paradisea 3, but I think NOS DACs that use older chips and have no digital filtering seem to be more fussy about the transport/signal than newer designs.

Thanks again.

 

[john57]

I have the Juli@ card since I wanted the built in MDI ports. However there is a better card made by the same company ESI called Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi. This card has the op-amps all in sockets, more shielding for the digital side and better larger caps on the board. The Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 also is more resistance to CPU and HDD noise. The one issue I have with the Juli@ card is RF interference on the audio outputs when the card is using a higher sample rate. I have to put ferrite chokes on the cables. I could get the Midi ports on the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi card but it was a $60 option at the time. Pervious I have the M-Audio 2496 card and decided against getting the M-Audio 192 version because of the SPDIF bug that causes distortion in the output. The ESI drivers are ¼ the size of the M-Audio drivers and worked much better for my needs.

 

[MSmith83]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Uthadude /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't use replay gain on my home rig, but on my portable I use replay gain. Quite frequently I don't have time to listen to whole albums while walking around the Home Depot or sitting at the coffee shop. Also, a loud song out of the blue isn't conducive to good driving.

Same here. I finally decided to tag all of my FLAC files (except DTS-CDs) for ReplayGain when I almost went deaf after quickly switching from Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak to one of AC/DC's remastered albums.

 

[UNHchabo]

Copied from my comment in another thread:

Quote:

I have all of my files tagged with ReplayGain info, then I use the ReplayGain override plugin: foobar2000: Components Repository - Replaygain Override It allows me to enable Track ReplayGain when I have the playback order set to random, so that consecutive tracks are somewhat equalized in volume, but to turn it off for default order, when I'm usually doing more critical listening. At work I enable Album ReplayGain because I listen to albums at a time, but I'm not paying 100% attention to the music.

I should also note that four pieces of ReplayGain information is stored in each track: Track Gain, Track Peak, Album Gain, and Album Peak. In Foobar2000 there's an option to "apply gain and prevent clipping according to peak". If you're using this option, that means that you can have an album that's really quiet overall, but has some parts that are at close to 0dB, and it still won't clip.

The only downside to Track Gain in random mode is that if you have a loud section at the very start of a soft song, then the song may get uncomfortably loud for that brief time, because the Track Gain is high. Happened to me with a track from an electronica album one time.

 

[UNHchabo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSmith83 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Same here. I finally decided to tag all of my FLAC files (except DTS-CDs) for ReplayGain when I almost went deaf after quickly switching from Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak to one of AC/DC's remastered albums.

DTS is already compressed, so instead of trying to keep the compressed stream in a FLAC file (which probably isn't helping you in terms of file size), I'd say keep the DTS streams in .dts files. Then you can use Foobar to add ReplayGain info, while still keeping it in DTS format.

Then you can tell Foobar whether or not it should ignore that ReplayGain info during playback, depending on what you want to do.

 

[the_equalizer]

I use it in my iPod and Sansa e200. While driving, the formula

shuffle + crossfade + replaygain

is unbeatable.

 

[Ra97oR]

I use replay gain both at home and portable, just because I never listen to an album, I listen to my whole library shuffled.