Tool for analyzing dynamic range of music library

[5omeone]

Dear ASR-Community.

Perhaps the topic has been discussed before. If it is indeed present, I simply have not been able to find it and would greatly appreciate a reference.

At the moment there is a real hype about high quality audio formats and their providing via adequate hardware. It seems that people are making a lot of money in this market by overbidding each other with bitrates - you can almost call this a "DAC war". Well, over the years I have collected a certain amount of audio files. Some "original" CDs I have also stored as Lossless format for home streaming. Regardless of the fact that I myself can often only guess a difference between classic CD quality of 16bit /44,1kHz and e.g. 24 Bit/192 kHz, I would be interested in the following thing:

Is there a tool (for macOS) I can use to analyze the dynamic range of my library and possibly even store the results in the meta data? Some albums I find suspect and would feel much better with an analysis.

Do you have any other suggestion alternatively?

Wish you all a good start into the weekend and many greetings!

 

[RayDunzl]

Audacity and the Dynamic Range plugin might fill your need.

Audacity and the Dynamic Range plugin - Google Search

 

[theREALdotnet]

At the moment there is a real hype about high quality audio formats and their providing via adequate hardware.

Any lossless digital format is essentially a high quality format. It does not guarantee a high quality recording, though.

It seems that people are making a lot of money in this market by overbidding each other with bitrates - you can almost call this a "DAC war".

Not at all. Humbly priced DACs like the Topping D10s will do PCM384 and DSD256 very competently.

Is there a tool (for macOS) I can use to analyze the dynamic range of my library and possibly even store the results in the meta data? Some albums I find suspect and would feel much better with an analysis.

I’m not aware of stand-alone tools, but the two macOS compatible players I’m familiar with – Audirvana and Roon – both do this.

 

[Apesbrain]

I've not tried it, but:

Dynamic Range Meter for Mac by Brainworx Music and Media GmbH

The latest version of Dynamic Range Meter is 1.0 on Mac Informer. It is a perfect match for the Audio & Video category.

macdownload.informer.com

There is a similar component for foobar2000 which I've used.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Dear ASR-Community.

Perhaps the topic has been discussed before. If it is indeed present, I simply have not been able to find it and would greatly appreciate a reference.

At the moment there is a real hype about high quality audio formats and their providing via adequate hardware. It seems that people are making a lot of money in this market by overbidding each other with bitrates - you can almost call this a "DAC war". Well, over the years I have collected a certain amount of audio files. Some "original" CDs I have also stored as Lossless format for home streaming. Regardless of the fact that I myself can often only guess a difference between classic CD quality of 16bit /44,1kHz and e.g. 24 Bit/192 kHz, I would be interested in the following thing:

Is there a tool (for macOS) I can use to analyze the dynamic range of my library and possibly even store the results in the meta data? Some albums I find suspect and would feel much better with an analysis.

Do you have any other suggestion alternatively?

Wish you all a good start into the weekend and many greetings!

As you said. It’s a hype to make money.

 

[lashto]

Foobar plugin Dynamic Range Meter. Quite old and not updated anymore but it should be good enough.
Some newer tools are listed on https://dr.loudness-war.info/ (check the top menu "Links"). Presumably better but also not free.

 

[kschmit2]

xivero MusicScope can also determine the dynamic range (also for macOS, and free now): https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...scope-audiorepair-xisrc-amtra-and-hpex.25076/

 

[gsp1971]

Foobar plugin Dynamic Range Meter. Quite old and not updated anymore but it should be good enough.
Some newer tools are listed on https://dr.loudness-war.info/ (check the top menu "Links"). Presumably better but also not free.

I have been using Foobar plugin Dynamic Range Meter and https://dr.loudness-war.info/ for a few years now and I am happy with both.