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[trw7]

I've read every post here that I could find to confirm that I'm not missing something, but I still can't seem to get the replay gain to work with my 30GB 3G iPod. Here's what I'm doing:

1) All my mp3s in MC9 (9.1.269) are analyzed and show values in the replay gain column.

2) I have checked the "Apply Replay Gain" checkbox in the "Set upload volume adjustment" dialog in MC9 and set the spinner on the left to 12.0dB

3) I synched my iPod via a smartlist that contains all of my un-rated songs and a smartlist I created just for testing replay gain that has songs with replay gain of 4 or more and songs with replay gain of -17 or lower. All three checkboxes in the Synch dialog are checked.

4) On the iPod, I have tested with Sound Check both turned on and turned off - there is no difference.

5) On the iPod, I play one of the songs that has Replay Gain of about -18 (a song recorded on the original CD at a very high level). I listen for a minute or two to get a good feel for the volume. Then I switch directly to a song with a Replay Gain of about 4 (a song recorded on the original CD at a very low level). In comparison, the second song is barely audible. The Replay Gain of these two songs differs by over 20dB. That means that one song is over 6 times louder than the other. I would think if the Replay Gain playback on my iPod were working, these songs would play back at much closer levels, but they do not. They still sound about 20dB different in volume level.

I am convinced by this and many, many hours of other listening that Replay Gain is not working for me. What else can I try? Wipe out the iPod and start from scratch? Some other setting? I'm open to ideas because it does get irritating adjusting the playback volume all the time.

Any help appreciated.

-- TRW

Media Center Registered 9.1.269 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows 2000 5.0 Service Pack 3 (Build 2195)
Intel Pentium 4 1785 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 225 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 / Shell32.dll: 5.00.3502.5436 / wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)

Ripping /   Drive G:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Drive H:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32112
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   E:\Sounds\complete_rip.wav

Burning /  Drive H: SONY     DVD RW DRU-500A    Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:24  MaxSpeed:24  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
  Use playback settings: Yes /  Normalization: None

[SteveG]

How do the songs sound when played in MC?

If they sound 'correct' try transferring those two songs with the 'Adjust all file volumes' set to +100% and see if you get the same result.

Steve

[trw7]

In MC, their levels sound the same.  The +4db song sounds exactly as loud as the -17dB song.  So replay gain in MC is working fine.

I set the "Adjust all file volumes" spinner to +100% and synched my test playlist with the iPod.  The result is the same.  The loud song is still much, much louder than the quiet song when played back on the iPod.

When I examine the content of the iPod from within MC, the replay gain column shows "?" for all songs, but I read in another post that this is a bug in MC and that the replay gain values are, in fact, on the files that MC sends to the iPod.

So I know that the songs are properly analyzed and replay gain works in MC, but have no idea where this is breaking down on the way to the iPod.

[trw7]

Just reformatted my iPod and started from scratch, but got the same results.  No replay gain leveling on iPod playback.

I'm going to do a test with iTunes for Windows and see if that works.

[SteveG]

Tonight's MC build includes a modification to allow the baseline Replay Gain on iPod transfers to increase by +- 24 db. Try boosting this beyond 12 and see if your files get both louder and still have a difference between them.

Steve

[trw7]

Found the "problem."

Almost all of my iPod listening is done at my desk at work where I have the iPod in its cradle and the line-out from the cradle going into my desktop stereo.  Reading an unrelated post about someone using the line-out from the cradle turned on a light bulb.  Sure enough, when I listened to my "test" songs using headphones plugged into the iPod's headphone jack, their levels were properly evened out.  So, the way the iPod implements the replay gain on songs is by adjusting the playback volume to the headphone jack, but not the line-out.  I consider this a bug on Apple's part, but now I know that MediaCenter is in the clear and I know what the workaround is.

[SteveG]

trw7,

Thanks for the update on this.

Steve

[bdjohns1]

Found the "problem."

Almost all of my iPod listening is done at my desk at work where I have the iPod in its cradle and the line-out from the cradle going into my desktop stereo.  Reading an unrelated post about someone using the line-out from the cradle turned on a light bulb.  Sure enough, when I listened to my "test" songs using headphones plugged into the iPod's headphone jack, their levels were properly evened out.  So, the way the iPod implements the replay gain on songs is by adjusting the playback volume to the headphone jack, but not the line-out.  I consider this a bug on Apple's part, but now I know that MediaCenter is in the clear and I know what the workaround is.

That's actually by design.  The line-out is un-amplified so you can do the amplification with a higher-quality external amplifier.  Having a separate headphone amplifier seems to be a must for the people with really high end headphones (Grado, Sennheiser) and bottomless wallets.

[trw7]

I think that is a wise design decision by Apple.  What I think they missed, though, was to have two 1/8" jacks on the back of the dock - one a line out (like the current one) and one that is variable and is affected by the iPod's volume leveling.  That way I have a choice of connections from the dock.  It seems a bit lame to have my iPod sitting in the dock, yet I still have to feed by stereo from the headphone jack. Currently, even if I fed my stereo from the headphone jack, the signal-to-noise from the iPod's headphone amp is good enough that I would need to have stereo's volume very high to hear any noise - and that would be during quiet songs or between songs.  I would expect the same from an additional jack on the dock. The connection to the iPod would stay nice a clean and I could take advantage of equalized song volumes.