Decibel ratings for music

[Jhunt94]

My headunit distorts at 38 out of 40, but I don't listen to it that loud. I'm not going to turn my shit wide open all the time and just listen to it on one level. No two songs are going to be the same, you can't expect to play a metallica song that was recorded in the 70s and then play a psyph morrison song and expect them to play and sound the same. It sounds like your looking for perfection in an imperfect car audio world.

[ILuvJDM]

My headunit distorts at 38 out of 40, but I don't listen to it that loud. I'm not going to turn my shit wide open all the time and just listen to it on one level. No two songs are going to be the same, you can't expect to play a metallica song that was recorded in the 70s and then play a psyph morrison song and expect them to play and sound the same. It sounds like your looking for perfection in an imperfect car audio world.

No, this is exactly what I'm referring to, with MP3Gain, you can do that. You can have any and every song at the same volume. This is literally what this entire thread is in reference to. My music is all taken to an equal dB rating of 89dB. I have NO music that is louder from one track to the next. I can turn my volume up to 38 of 40 and let it go from a 70's Metallica song to a Psyph Morrison song.

This explains why nobody here seems to understand my question.

[reedal]

You guys honestly drive around and constantly adjust the bass and volume knobs for each and every song? That sounds terrible.

Yes. Because as you've already said, not all music is recorded equally. And as has already been said by someone else, it's about knowing your gear. It's limits and its requirements. I don't use a bass knob. Just my volume knob. If a song comes on that I know is recorded at a level too high for my gain setting (The Reason by Stevie Stone) I turn my HU down because it only takes a few notes to get smelly. Why is that terrible? I turn it down to a volume that sends out the acceptable voltage for my amp settings and when the next song comes on, if it's too quiet, I turn it back up.

I've not used or researched MP3gain (I think?) but how do you know all it's doing is adjusting the dB level of the song? Have you looked at the slowed signal of the song on a scope to verify it hasn't clipped the waves in some way to boost songs that are lower than 89dB or songs that are higher?

[Jhunt94]

I'll just stick to adjusting my volume, I'm not about to run every song I have through a program..I'm not that OCD..

[Broke_Audio_Addict]

If your music is all set to the same level then what's the fucking problem?

Seriously man you are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

K.I.S.S. ( Keep it simple stupid)in case you didn't know.

[ILuvJDM]

You guys honestly drive around and constantly adjust the bass and volume knobs for each and every song? That sounds terrible.

Yes. Because as you've already said, not all music is recorded equally. And as has already been said by someone else, it's about knowing your gear. It's limits and its requirements. I don't use a bass knob. Just my volume knob. If a song comes on that I know is recorded at a level too high for my gain setting (The Reason by Stevie Stone) I turn my HU down because it only takes a few notes to get smelly. Why is that terrible? I turn it down to a volume that sends out the acceptable voltage for my amp settings and when the next song comes on, if it's too quiet, I turn it back up.

I've not used or researched MP3gain (I think?) but how do you know all it's doing is adjusting the dB level of the song? Have you looked at the slowed signal of the song on a scope to verify it hasn't clipped the waves in some way to boost songs that are lower than 89dB or songs that are higher?

It's a lossless gain program, so it doesn't alter the files at all and there is no recoding.

I'm very surprised nobody uses it. It's nice being able to set my computer speakers to a certain acceptable volume and walk away and it plays every song at the same volume. Obviously there will be more bass between one or the other, like playing Gorilla Zoe vs Blink182, but I mean the overall volume is about the same. I cannot stand having one song come on that sounds twice as loud as the one before me.

And like I said most music now days is 95dB - 103dB. The older music from 70's and such is around 89dB. The default for MP3Gain is 89dB for this exact reason. If you try to take an 89dB song and raise it to 103dB, it will clip and it will pop up as red and show a Y in the clipped column of the program. The idea is you take every song down to the 89dB volume and there is 0 clipping.

[SLYentist]

maybe my post was too terse.

[Kyblack76]

Adjustable gain

pac

[ILuvJDM]

If your music is all set to the same level then what's the fucking problem?

Seriously man you are making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

K.I.S.S. ( Keep it simple stupid)in case you didn't know.

I never thought this thread would turn into the shit-show it has. I made the assumption people knew what the MP3Gain or similar programs were when I made the post.

The question I have is pretty simple now that you understand what I'm trying to ask: If my music is at 89dB, and I'm trying to tune my gain overlap on my amps to -5dB, then wouldn't it make sense that my test tones should read 84dB in the program that I use? I verified this by downloading a bunch of random test tone groups, and the results showed exactly what I thought. You can see those results in my second post of this thread.

[reedal]

Well it sounds like you've got it figured out. I personally don't have the time to go through all of my music and do that. And it's not an issue for me to adjust my volume knob when I know a song has come on that can possibly damage my equipment. Its about knowing what your equipment can and can not do.