“Volume normalization”/“Loudness equalization”

[K-L]

I find considerable volume variability between songs and the fantastic Mini. Volume normalization or loudness equalization would be even better.

 

[Maurizio]

I’m not convinced that impacts casting from the app using AlexaCast -what’s your experience?

Hi @Brantome
It's enough hard, for me, to reply to your ask. I saw the normalization option but I seldom use that function. Only when I listen to Playlists and mostly I listen to Albums.
Anyway talking about what I hear by ears, it seems to me that the impact over quality is near 0

 

[Maurizio]

You can only apply Replay Gain if the tags are there to do so. They exist on all my local FLACs but I don't think any of the streaming services include Replay Gain tags. In my experience they prefer "normalisation" which is calculated and applied to the stream on their server i.e. before you receive it.

Qobuz via Bubble has that chance

 

[slappy]

Upvote the feature request - if a lot of people do, perhaps WiiM will consider it as an option.

It shouldn't be an option. IT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.

 

[slappy]

Hi @Brantome
It's enough hard, for me, to reply to your ask. I saw the normalization option but I seldom use that function. Only when I listen to Playlists and mostly I listen to Albums.
Anyway talking about what I hear by ears, it seems to me that the impact over quality is near 0

The quality is the same either way it's just the fact that you have to play DJ and constantly adjust the volume. I like listening to my library on shuffle while in the shower and it is very annoying and aggravating. If you play the louder tracks at 1/2 volume you have to turn up volume to 100 to get the same level on lower tracks

 

[slappy]

Qobuz via Bubble has that chance

Qubuzz is 16 bit 44.1khz on wiim streamers! Android app has loudness norminalization option in settings and wiim only has block explicit songs and HD/UHD option in Amazon settings.

 

[slappy]

In my experience, AM app normalization has no effect on AlexaCast or WHA.

As an exception, it only works when sending to WiiM via Bluetooth. Also, when "Atmos" is turned on during Bluetooth transmission, the volume difference is large ("360 Reality Audio" is very low in 2ch playback).

Ps: I don't think the AM normalization function is very effective in the first place

Bluetooth is lossy, compressed!

 

[Mr Ee]

Qubuzz is 16 bit 44.1khz on wiim streamers! Android app has loudness norminalization option in settings and wiim only has block explicit songs and HD/UHD option in Amazon settings.

Then you've not changed the setting.
iirc, open qobuz in wiim app, then top left 'hamburger' menu.

 

[Mr Ee]

The quality is the same either way it's just the fact that you have to play DJ and constantly adjust the volume. I like listening to my library on shuffle while in the shower and it is very annoying and aggravating. If you play the louder tracks at 1/2 volume you have to turn up volume to 100 to get the same level on lower tracks

Not exactly the same, but often close enough to make no real diference, as Maurizio says.
Volume adjustment modifies the signal, so no longer bit perfect, for those for whom that matters.
It can also introduce distortion in some circumstances, as already discussed in this forum.

 

[Maurizio]

Qubuzz is 16 bit 44.1khz on wiim streamers! Android app has loudness norminalization option in settings and wiim only has block explicit songs and HD/UHD option in Amazon settings.

Who said Qobuz with WiiM streamers is 16/44?
I have the Pro; the Mini; and Qobuz. To recap :
WHA Qobuz is 24/192, gapeless
Qobuz App via Chromecast 24/96 No gapeless
Qobuz via BubbleUPnP 24/192, gapless
Qobuz via MConnect (if you are on IOS) 24/192, gapeless
All this is confirmed by what I read on the display of my external DAC

 

[Mr Ee]

Who said Qobuz with WiiM streamers is 16/44?

Anyone using WHA and who hasn't updated the settings in Qobuz

 

[Wiimer]

Bluetooth is lossy, compressed!

I don't think you'll hear the difference in the shower room, but I'm not against the WiiM having a normalization feature.

By the way, I exclude tracks with extremely different volumes from My Playlist.

 

[Brantome]

It shouldn't be an option. IT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD.

Could you cut back on the shouty capital letters please, they don’t add to your case…

 

[d6jg]

Qobuz via Bubble has that chance

Are you sure?
Could someone who uses Qobuz via BubbleUPnP physically check the content of the Qobuz stream played this way - I can't see anyway that they could include this data in their stream - is the option in Bubble actually present when it shouldn't be?

 

[d6jg]

Are you sure?
Could someone who uses Qobuz via BubbleUPnP physically check the content of the Qobuz stream played this way - I can't see anyway that they could include this data in their stream - is the option in Bubble actually present when it shouldn't be?

Answering myself. Yes Bubble supports TRACK replay gain from Qobuz/Tidal since July 2020.

 

[d6jg]

Answering myself. Yes Bubble supports TRACK replay gain from Qobuz/Tidal since July 2020.

Following this discovery I did some digging over at LMS forum and to my surprise I have found that although the RG tag is not disclosed the Qobuz plugin does provide the track gain tag and if enabled on the player it is supported. This includes the WiiM Mini (and I presume Pro) when utilised with LMS's UPnP/DLNA Bridge in Full Processing mode (not necessarily using the "flow" option).

This is what the plugin author has to say about the modes of operation. The WiiM can operate in either mode as of now but only Full Processing provides Replay Gain and Fade-In./Out etc but NOT Smart Crossfade.

LMS also supports RG on Tidal.

There are two processing audio modes

1- Passthrough

• In this mode, the audio tracks are simply passed to the UPnP/DLNA player with almost no modification (except a few tweaks for PCM -uncompressed- and flac).
• Success will vary from track to track, depending on your UPnP/Player characteristics
• Except for PCM tracks, replay gain, fade in/out/in-out will not work
• Gapless works with UPnP/DLNA players that support it, but quite often it's not true gapless
• Codec setup can be complicated, see below note

2- Full processing

• In this mode, the tracks are decoded and resampled (if needed) by the bridge and either sent as uncompressed PCM or re-encoded using flac or mp3
• This mode provides much better compatibility as the same format can be sent to the UPnP/DLNA player
• Replay gain, fade in/out/in-out are supported
• Supported codecs are ogg,mp3,aac,flac,pcm and this is indépendant from what your player support as the Bridge does transcoding
• There is a special option named "flow" to send all the tracks as a long single stream to enable true gapless and crossfade (you'll lose metadata display on the UPnP/DLNA player unless re-encoding uses mp3, icy metadata is enabled and supported by the player)

 

[slappy]

Then you've not changed the setting.
iirc, open qobuz in wiim app, then top left 'hamburger' menu.

Does not let me select anything but mp3 or CD quality to try out. If that is the case, you think that they would let you select best quality to sample app. LAME!

 

[slappy]

Does not let me select anything but mp3 or CD quality to try out. If that is the case, you think that they would let you select best quality to sample app. LAME!

Android app let's you select ALL sampling rates.

 

[Brantome]

Does not let me select anything but mp3 or CD quality to try out. If that is the case, you think that they would let you select best quality to sample app. LAME!

Do you have a subscription or are on a free trial period? If not, that might be why.

 

[Brantome]

Android app lets you select ALL sampling rates.

What exactly are you complaining about? What are you trying to do?

 

[Brantome]

Again, please stop shouting…

I guess you’re referring to the Qobuz app - the whole point of a free trial is by definition to allow you to try the service and all it offers. If you don’t take a trial, you won’t experience what the service has to offer, hi res and all. There’s no point in complaining about a service when it offers a free way for you to experience before subscribing.