my first post-hope it isn't stupid!
I'm currently ripping my entire classical colection and encoding with api.
i've got an Archos jukebox studio 10 that i upgraded to 30g to listen at work.
but the quiet parts are too quiet, so i've been trying limiters and a plugin for winamp called 'wide & dynamix'. so far ,i think the plugin sounds best but it's purely 16 bit. should i worry about requantization errors?
thanx for any help

Do you want to apply these plugins/effects before encoding or on playback?

If the effect/plugin you use works with higher resolution internally, requantization (or dither) is only applied 1 time, so it won't be audible.

You might want to look into XMPlay, a audio player that has a built in dynamic auto-amplification (could give you what you want) and works with 32bit internal resolution (+ is capable of 24bit/32bit output). If you want to apply the effect before encoding, XMPlay can use lame.exe as "output plugin", so you can do everything in 1 step.

BTW there are other Dynamic Compression Winamp plugins e.g. RockSteady.

tigre, thanx for your quick reply
i'm ripping with eac then running the wave through winamp diskwriter with wide & dynamix enabled. i think it doesn't compress but just turns the volume up on quiet parts??? i will check out xm-play.
thanx alot!


later-tried xm-play,only normalizes

Use TCMP 'The Core Media Player' , it comes with a Dynamics reduction filter ( NO normalizing ) for playback, up to 20 dB if you dare to do so ... i found 10 dB to be the maximum, beyond that i can hear serious 'pumping' effect .. http://www.corecoded.com ....

You might want to try AudioStocker for Winamp 2. xx

I you can't hear quiet parts, there is no way you can hear quantization effects !

well, i'm getting the quiet parts pretty loud with the wide and dynamics plugin. did try the xm-play dynamics reducer but it didn't have enough effect and no adjustments. it seems the noise i get is mainly on remastered cds (tape hiss) so i guess requantization noise is the least of my problems.btw i'
ve got noise reducing headphones from aiwa that help some


(also switched to aps -y from api,might need the room,sounds the same)

I had the same problem. Noisy environment. Couldn't hear the soft passages.

If you are looking for a winamp plugin, have you tried the sqrsoft compressor?
It is a playback only compressor(1), so you do not have to re-encode or otherwise mess with your files.

It seems to work only with the sqrsoft crossfader, and it seems that you have to place it in the dsp section of the output plugin,
but it does do the job pretty well.

I used this on a piece sung by Bryn Terfel "Is My Team Ploughing", which has alternately soft and very loud passages, and I used it on the piano Pictures at an Exhibition.

It did a decent job. Promenade 2, and Catacombs and Among The Dead all came through very clearly, if less emotively.

(1) This is not strictly true if you use the sqrsoft diskwrter.