Yes what I meant was that without the adaptive volume enable (aside the volume leveling) the volume is so low that I have to turn the knob of the amp to the 3/4 position just to get normal playback volume out of my WA7 amp. Without any of that I can use the amp at 11 oclock position and in general the sound is much better then it is at 3/4 position. Seems to have more dynamic range, a bit more punch in the bass and differences between soft and hard music are more significant, not as compressed persay.
Human perception is funny in that a small difference in volume is enough to change how we perceive the music. If things are quieter, there doesn't seem to be as much bass and the sound is "flatter".
So when you introduce Volume Leveling and reduce the volume a lot, you need to be sure that you are turning up the amplifier an appropriate amount to do a properly level-matched comparison.
Whether your amplifier is at 11 o'clock or 3/4 of the way up, if it's producing the same volume, it's putting the same wattage into your speakers. It isn't being driven any harder.
You may have heard of the "loudness war" which is the fact that over time music has had its dynamic range more and more compressed.
This is done to make the track play louder, at the expense of sucking out all the dynamics. Quiet sounds are made louder, and loud sounds are made quieter so that it's just a wall of noise instead of being dynamic.
This is done for exactly the reason mentioned above - louder often sounds "better".
Volume Leveling directly counteracts this by making tracks play at the same volume level regardless of their dynamic range.
It has to bring the average volume down to -23 dB so that it has the headroom to do this without introducing clipping on highly dynamic tracks.
Highly dynamic tracks may actually have their level raised by volume leveling, but tracks without much dynamic range at all (modern masters) may have their volume reduced by 10 or even 15 dB if they are particularly bad.
Once everything is at the same level, these modern masters no longer have a loudness advantage. They are played back at the same level as well mastered music.
When you do a volume matched comparison, these tracks which have had all the dynamics sucked out to sound loud at all costs, sound completely flat compared to a good dynamic master.
Nothing about the volume leveling has changed how they sound, it's just that you are now able to compare things on an even level, rather than covering things up by being loud.
If you add the "Dynamic Range (DR)" field to your views, it will give you an idea of how well mastered the music is.
Good masters start about the 11-12 range. Modern, highly compressed, flat-sounding masters are often 6 or lower.
I think what I am noticing is what you are now saying that during Play Doctor playlists the volume leveling is completely defeated.
It is completely defeated if you combine it with adaptive volume in a Play Doctor playlist, as that will put it into adaptive mode rather than fixed mode.
If you use Volume Leveling on its own, it will level each track to -23 LU individually which should do a very good job of keeping things on the same level.
If you use Adaptive Volume on its own, it will use peak level normalization in a fixed mode. (though this will not level the playlist)
Ideally I want Play Doctor playlists to have the same leveling + adaptive volume as the static playlists.
This is not really possible, because the Play Doctor list of tracks is constantly changing, so the average volume and peak level of the playlist is constantly changing too.
However, if you're looking at the average level of say the previous 10 tracks and the next 100 in the list, it probably won't change in volume nearly as much as the adaptive mode.
The problem is that one track could throw off the volume of the entire playlist.
