MP3Gain - Any reason to Album Gain higher than 83dB? Options

[BFG]

I'm planning to apply replaygain MP3Gain (album) to my entire set of ripped CDs. I know that the default setting for MP3Gain is 89dB, which gives around 14dB of headroom. But I've read up on some industry standards - notably, SMPTE RP 200:2002 and EBU R128 - which recommend 83dB and 80dB respectively. Furthermore, I tend not to listen to music at very high volumes - typically I never go over about 40% of max - and the Replaygain MP3Gain analysis shows I would have to go down to 82dB or lower to avoid all clipping.

So, is there any reason NOT to go down to 83dB or 80dB? Am I reducing the dynamic range of the music by doing so (i.e. could I be causing some sections of the music to have a 0dB volume)?

And, an associated question - what does a blue track with ??? for clipping indicate in ReplayGain MP3Gain? I can't find any documentation on this.

This post has been edited by greynol: Nov 13 2012, 01:07

Reason for edit: replaygain -> mp3gain

[greynol]

The equation used is 10^[(G+3)/20] in order to add 3dB of gain. If you want to attenuate by 6dB in order to adhere to the 83dB reference, just replace the +3 with -6. Also, I have since updated the batch to add album artist to the ID3v2.

You can always adjust the level with mp3gain after the fact if you don't like the level. Regarding lack of perfect reversibility, they're lossy files to begin with.

This post has been edited by greynol: Nov 13 2012, 19:32

[skamp]

Regarding lack of perfect reversibility, they're lossy files to begin with.

I didn't mean that it was a bad idea. As a matter of fact, I've just added in caudec the ability to apply Replaygain after decoding and before encoding, because why not?