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Joined: Jan 2009
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If people listen to Spotify on a PC via the Spotify software you have the option to enable or disable 'volume normalization'

However, if you use (say Triode's) Spotify Plugin with Squeezebox there is no similar option and volume normalization is ALWAYS enabled. The official Squeezebox plug almost certainly behaves similarly as both depend on 'libspotify' - a package provided by Spotify to enable developers to create applications.

This is a major drawback.

Triode has made a request on Spotify's 'Get Satisfaction' website, that Spotify include the option to disable normalization in 'libspotify'.

If you agree with his request please lend your support on the 'Get Satisfaction' site:

Triode's request and subsequent comments

I thought it might be worth mentioning this here as I see that some contributors use Spotify. (I do hope I'm not infringing any rules.)

By the way, as an example, these are visual examples of the Spotify output of a recording of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with normalization disabled (via the Spotify PC interface) and enabled (via Squeezebox/Triode's plugin). The tracks are indicated by the vertical lines. (I captured the outputs and loaded the wave files into Soundforge in order to demonstrate the effect.)

Normalization disabled

Normalization enabled

In particular note the effect on the second track and also note that gain is even applied to tracks which originally peaked at 0dB, pushing the peaks into limiting to avoid clipping.

[Edit: I originally posted the link to the original CD rather than the Spotify output without normalization. They are very similar, though the Spotify version has limiting applied at about -0.5dB.)

Last edited by JohnGB; 2011-03-14 17:47.

G92-DAB, G55, speakers: PMC FB1+, Squeezebox Touch, Duet, Sennheiser HD600, HP Proliant Microserver running Ubuntu
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Thanks for the heads up.


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Bump.

If you use Spotify, please add your support to Triode's question by selecting "I also have this question".

Thanks!


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Hear, hear! Request supported @ Get Satisfaction.


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I just saw that the LibSpotify is updated to v0.0.8. This means the volume normalization problem should be solved. Now we only need an update from Triode.

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Doesn't look good...
Originally Posted by libspotify release notes
Version 0.0.8

SPOTIFY_API_VERSION is bumped to 8.

Added support for offline mode.
Users of libspotify can now request playlists to be offline
synchronized just as Spotify's desktop and mobile applications.
For example of how to do this, please see cmd_playlist_offline()
in playlist.c in the spshell example.

Added sp_playlistcontainer_is_loaded() which can be used to
check if a playlistcontainer is loaded. This value will be true
after the container_loaded() callback is invoked.

Added support for spotify:image: linktype. If your application
needs an abstract way to refer to coverarts, artist portraits, etc
this is what you should use.

Add sp_session_user_country() that returns the currently logged in
users registered country. This is the country that should be used
to get toplists localized for the user.

bugfix: LocalTrack URI handling (sp_link) was broken. This has now
been fixed

bufix: libspotify was unable to link on 10.4 and 10.5. This has
now been fixed


Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum
I am #25 in the HH1 photo of fame.
Joined: Apr 2004
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Don't Panic!
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Volume normalization now defeatable in Triode's Spotify plugin on Intel!

It's a workaround actually: normalization still cannot be turned off via the libspotify API, but someone discovered that if you add "enable_audio_norm":0 to the Spotify settings file, then this setting is honoured when the Spotify session object is created.

Triode has added a new option in the settings of the latest version of the plugin.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=640984&postcount=2713

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/...=email&utm_source=reply_notification


Roon Developer and ex-moderator of this Forum
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This is *really* good news!!!


G92-DAB, G55, speakers: PMC FB1+, Squeezebox Touch, Duet, Sennheiser HD600, HP Proliant Microserver running Ubuntu

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