1. Hello.

    I don't know much about this things, so I ask for help.

    I use foobar2000 to play my music. In some of the boots of I+E in headphones I can feel some "distortion" in high levels. I tried to use replay gain in foobar2000 and it lowered the full album some levels.

    When I listen the music again it feels some of the distortion is not there.

    Is this really truth?

    In other words, is there any advantage to aplly replain gain to full album?

    Thank you
  2. If an album was mixed / mastered / recorded poorly, you can never entirely get rid of that distortion (also called clipping) - what you're provided with on the recording is what you'll get and no amount of 'editing', 'self-remastering' or 'remixing' will fix that. You only have to listen to Vapor Trails by Rush (the original 2002 release) or perhaps Death Magnetic by Metallica to notice just how badly and 'unsalvageable' an album can be.

    Or perhaps U2's own albums.

    With live bootlegs, they can be recorded in numerous ways e.g. different equipment, from different parts of the venue, external aspects that cannot be helped...so there's no way to really get rid of that distortion sometimes.

    It will certainly help lower the volume to a more acceptable level so it doesn't blast out your eardrums and balance out uneven levels (if they exist). 92dB is a good amount to RG to (what I'd use, usually). This is through mp3gain if that makes any difference. I have an album that reaches 105dB (it's a pop-rock album) and bringing it to 92.0dB makes it bearable to listen to.

    Quick rant: If record 'executives' weren't so clueless and realised CD players / digital audio players have volume knobs, music wouldn't be so crushed, lose dynamics and sound more full of life, like they once did. CDs sound fine, but not when they're overly compressed to extreme 'hot' levels.

    I hope I sort of answered your question.

    See here: http://www.johnvestman.com/disease.htm


    While we're on the topic of MP3s and quality - I seem to recall people on another U2 forum (it was either Interference or atu2) saying NLOTH (the song) was an mp3 pressing and not a proper lossless transfer.
  3. Originally posted by LSMelo:Hello.

    I don't know much about this things, so I ask for help.

    I use foobar2000 to play my music. In some of the boots of I+E in headphones I can feel some "distortion" in high levels. I tried to use replay gain in foobar2000 and it lowered the full album some levels.

    When I listen the music again it feels some of the distortion is not there.

    Is this really truth?

    In other words, is there any advantage to aplly replain gain to full album?

    Thank you
    not really answering the question but try music bee out a much better platform for music mp3's
  4. RG's purpose is that you can listen tracks / albums who are recorded at different loudness without turning your volume knob all the time.

    As far as I know it shouldnt actually remove distortions, if there is clipping in the MP3 RG cant magically fix it. Perhaps it will be less appearant.