After some testing I have found some good results. When dropping all my music to 93db , power not considering dynamic levels , is dropped well more than half than the 98db music's original output was. Now here is the challenging factor. Setting your gains that would have a tone set originally at 102 db for example, and your music is now 93 db, you have such a loss of power ,the gains must go up , or the tone setting must go down. So we change the tone to 98db for example. That technically leaves 5db of overlap. Now we are running our amp with more gain than before which may introduce noise and limits potential headroom. So does the concept of clipping and dropping music to 93db has some consequence? Is it really worth it? Idk? So is it better to run 98 db music and leave the tone as made ,or run 93db music and drop tone to compensate?That is my current debate. When I find my preout level is only around a volt set at 98db, I am not getting the benefit of my head units output. I found that at the 102db tone I am around 2 volts output. That gives less gain on amp and more advantage of my head unit. Most will never think about this but it makes a huge difference. So is mp3 gain my friend or my enemy?

 

Id like to know this as well. So that i know what db to set my songs to. Just got a usb stick.

 

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I don't know about all the technical stuff but I don't care for mp3 gain.. It did more harm than good with my music

 

Dive into the MP3 gain settings and u can probably stabilize the variance issues there I.e auto max gain for album or track. U could probably look at the figures and make some deductions from that point and perhaps can get all songs clean at 93, 94, 95, 96 97, etc......
Or u could always just toss this program in the trash bin and turn the volume up on the songs that need it. Not sure I would want to dumb down a song that is playing good, loud, and clean just to avoid the inconvenience of moving your thumb just a bit when ur favorite Roy Rogers songs come on.

T.

 

It's not just about having level sound on my bike. I run my ipod through a stereo through to outdoor speakers by my pool, through my clock radio, the list continues. Nothing worse than volume going up and down between tracks. And I don't have an easy thumb control for all those other uses

 

So how many Roy Rogers songs do u have scattered throughout your playlists?

I would bet that 85 to 90% of your tunes r running clean at 95db or higher. Do u really want to take those 85 to 90% songs down to an 89?

Ur call, but I'm not going let the tail wag the dog with my tunes and if I were to run this MP3 gain program with anything less than a 95, I would be doing just that. Then again, I don't know what ur play lists look like so maybe u have some more classics embedded in there than I do.

Check out the settings and find the happy medium that meets ur individual needs.

Other ways around it too. Get a house iPod since I doubt ur running ur clock radio at max clean sound levels. I have sled only nano and sticks as those are intended to be run at max performance levels as sled audio is a completely different animal. Sitting in bed or by the pool, not so much. U could also arrange ur play lists so that the classics with 89 max clean gain are on that specific track list.

T.

 

The key is Clipping
Trying to find a good balance of all your music .
If most of your source music is ripped at 98db then i would try to bring the ones below that up to that level.
Again clipping is the key. some songs may not reach that level without clipping.
I always use the gain per track and not level per Album.
Also you could try and find a medium between the levels.
After doing an analysis on the music you may find that 96db would be happy median.

Also try the max no clip gain on individual tracks. this will set the gain t the closest possible setting without clipping to your baseline.
Review the results and go from there. if most songs wont make it to 96 the adjust down.
It can be tedious and time consuming. But the results will speak for themselves

Im sure everyone knows that there is an undo gain changes, This will revert the file back to original.

 

That's pretty much what I use it for, I still have a few that clip but not many.

 

I'm sure everyone knows that there is an undo gain changes, This will revert the file back to original ... AND FWIW ... I always experiment AFTER I've made a copy of the files/directory ... Just in case. ( from the Department of Redundancy Department )