Hello there,

I was just wondering what the issue would be if i was to set my foobar as follows:

Preamp +7dB (96dB)
Advanced Limiter in DSP


This way most of my songs would be alot louder than the default 89dB and any of the ones that would have clipped before, will not because the Advanced Limiter setting??? However my question is what issues would arise out of this (i.e. loss in sound quality, for the ones that the Advanced Limiter is engaged for, will this affect their volume making them more or less loud than the rest of the songs?) those are my main concerns...thanks

My God !!!

With this settings you will be a good candidate for support the awful Loudness Race....

Your songs don't play at 89 dB if they are not Replaygained in the first place... are they?

If your songs are typically modern age (rock, pop, tinnitus-causing, etc), your songs won't clip even if you have the preamp at that level.

But for the better mastered songs from certain rare bands and classical settings, then yes, they will clip and distort and the advanced limiter will limit ONLY those frames that clip.

@sld
Thank you. That's an explanation i've searched for in this thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=30857

So, would you recommend the Advanced Limiter or the Soft Clipping Limiter to do the better job?
('Cos some of my tracks are still clipped after use of the "Advanced limiter".)

oh yes sorry, i forgot to mention that my files are ReplayGained in the first place, but im finding that the default 89dB is just too quiet so i want to try 96dB (+7 preamp) whilst having Advanced Limiter in my DSP but i'm wondering what impact this will have on the sound quality when the Advanced Limiter is engaged for those songs that would clip and i was also wondering how the volume of the song would be affected when the Advanced Limiter is engaged...i.e. will the songs that are affected by the Advanced Limiter still be the same volume as the ones that do not need the Advanced Limiter??

I also had another question while we're on the topic.....what effect does the Volume Control DSP have ?? dont it too prevent clipping or can it be used as suggested to have the Advanced Limiter engage at a lower value than full scale....because what i would prefer is for it to engage around -.5dB as opposed to just before 0dB?

THanks again!

anyone??

Volume control does not prevent clipping. It cannot be used to change the threshold of the advanced limiter, only to scale down the output of that by 0.5dB.

It might work if you could put 1 DSP 2 times in the chain. Put volume control, boost by 0.5dB, advanced limiter, lower by 0.5dB.

But you can't, right?

Nope.

That would also require volume control being able to boost the volume. Or how do you want to raise the volume? Preamp?

Anything that could add 0.5dB gain.

Hah, what about this:

EQ (all sliders +0.5dB)
Limiter
Volume Control (-0.5dB)

Too bad equalizer is only settable with 1dB precision, so replace 0.5dB with 1dB in previous and it might actually work.

simple answer: Soundquality will suffer more than by using a bad encoder or even re-encoding. But it will be a different type of quality-loss: the music will sound more "flat" and loose punch and dynamics. However, depending on the type of music you listen to, you may not notice it because you're already used to "overcompressed music"(most modern pop, rock and more are overcompressed - basically, with mainstream-music overcompression has become "normal" -> you're buying "damaged" music-cds and don't notice it because it has become "normal".)

To get more info, just search the forum for the keyword "overcompressed" - you will find lots of threads and info.

- Lyx