I have a DAP that does not support replaygain (you know, like most of them), but I want some consistancy to my levels. Other than the fact that I change my actual files irreversably, is there any real peril in doing this?

Are there "problem samples like with MP3's", or is it generally straight forward (I know it's described as "lossless, but I've also read that it causes "minimal change", so . . . " I'm unsure of some of the clipping warnings and stuff, but I'll surf the forums before I get in to that

Also, there's tons of places to get MP3gain. Can anyone point me towards the latest stable build? A lot of the versions I see are from last January. Sorry for the possible repeat questions, I did search for some of this.

Best place to get mp3gain is from the source. mp3gain.sourceforge.net

As to your other questions. I just let it rip in album mode and make sure it's set for the album is directory mode...or whatever that is. Sorry, don't have it installed right now. Once the analysis is done, I'll scan through and see if anything needs some special attention and go from there.

so is it completely non-destructive?
edit: do you folks find that with the level set to 89db (the default) you can just leave everything else at the default settings as well?

It's non-destructive. It's also reversible (if you keep a log of the db changes). On newer versions be sure to check the "don't use tags at all" option.
Newer versions keep a log of db changes in an APE tag. If your mp3 only has id3 tags, the ape tag will be empty and some software will show that (empty) ape tag only.

Also be sure to gain in album mode or live albums / albums with continous music across tracks will get bad (sudden volume change between what should be a continous stream). Besides it's generally better to use album mode (IMO).

The only thing you should be cautious about is when mp3gain wants to up the volume of the album (may happen on very quite / very dynamic ones, but never happened to me) as you may introduce clipping in such a case.

Edit: I never changed the default of 89dB as I think that's the best value. It's also consistent with foobars replaigain values (that is when you scan an mp3gained album the album gain will be within +- 0.25 db).

as far as i heard on my mp3player (ipod mini) mp3gained mp3s DO sound DIFFERENT. Dont know if it loses any information or something, but i found they sounded different then the normal not mp3gained one.

just my 2 cents

ok... (perhaps quieter or louder, that's different.)

i dont know what it was, but especialy the bass sounded much softer then the non-mp3gained one.

That may happen if you used the equalizer. The ipod distorts heavily with most equalizer settings. If you mp3gain, however, the distortion is not noticable anymore.

Other than that, the mp3s will not sound differently. After all, they are only changed in volume.

There may be a slight change, because mp3s down-gained to 89dB will not use the full 16bit scale. On equipment that has better DACs (18bit ore more) that point is moot. In any case I doubt that anyone is able to ABX the decrease in resolution.

actually, the improved EQ is one of the reasons I thought of doing this. Any iPod owners have an issues with getting enough volume out of the iPod @ 89db? After all, it is a lot quieter than a lot of the poorly mastered cd's these days.

I have a capped EU iPod and have no problems whatsoever with volume. Usually I listen at less than half the volume scale (with my gained mp3s).

But I have good quality isolating in-ear phones..

good to know. I think I'm going to go ahead and MP3gain my files then. thanks.

Latest stable frontend is 1.2.5, latest stable backend is 1.4.6, both available here.

Regards,
Madrigal

Sorry for playing 'policeman', but this is the kind of statement that needs to be backed up by objective data, per TOS#8.

Could you please elaborate? I thought that it is vital to use tags, otherwise the changes cannot be undone. Or do you mean that the changes are saved in the ID3v2 tags if they are present and that the (additionally created) APE tag will be empty then? This does not conform to my experiences...

Another thing about MP3gain: If I look at MP3gained files with Encspot and view the LAME tag, it always tells me that the Music CRC is corrupt, even when I undo the MP3Gain changes. Can anyone confirm this behaviour? Otherwise the files are fine, no sync or playback problems whatsoever.

The changes can be undone manually if you keep a log of the dB changes, it's just not automatic anymore.

What I meant with the APE tags is this: if your MP3 doesn't have an APE tag, MP3Gain will write an empty APE tag with just the gain change info and nothing else. Some software (such as foobar e.g.) will only read APE tags if APE tags are present and not the ID3 tags that may also be present. In that case your mp3 will not have propper info loaded (since the APE tag is empty).
If your mp3 does have an APE tag the gain change info will just be added and everything's fine.