Well now its in there, but I must say I have a hard time hearing any diference.

Good. The difference should be subtle, not irritatingly obvious. Theoretically, you should simply be able to listen like you always have, and just come to the realization that you're not jockeying the volume nearly as much as you used to.

The important thing is that its main job is to correct low-volume passages and bring them up above the car noise floor. If all your music is loud, then it won't be doing anything to the music and you won't notice any change at all.

Any good tips on how to hear any diference?

Yeah, any song with quiet parts mixed with loud parts. Or any quiet song played next to a loud song, or a song with a long fade-out.

Examples:

Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer: The wood flute intro is usually so quiet you can't hear it at all, and when the horn section comes in, it blows your speakers. With this kernel, the wood flute intro's volume is brought up so that you can hear it well in relation to the horns, but the horns come in at the correct volume. (Incidentally, Rjlov: the timing on this is much better with the last couple releases, it used to pump too hard on this bit, now it sounds pretty good.)

Rush: A Farewell To Kings: The classical acoustic guitar intro is amplified more in comparison to the loud electric part of the song. A lot of other Rush songs benefit from this, too, because of similar acoustic guitar intros.

Dire Straits: Why Worry (from Brothers in Arms): A very quiet song with extremely gentle dynamics. I swear that there are times when Mark Knopfler isn't so much plucking the strings as simply moving the air around the strings to make them vibrate. The overall problem is that the song tends to be so quiet compared to the other albums in my collection that I turn up this song too loud and then have a heart attack when the next song is from Nine Inch Nails or something. Great song, though, I just listened to it again. The instrumental section at the end leaves you with such a wonderful feeling, that you just go "ahhhhh..." on the last chord...

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon (entire album): The intro to the album is a faint heartbeat which fades in from silence. The heartbeat (and the noise floor surrounding it) is brought up to audible levels and that whole intro is leveled out so you can hear the whole thing without cranking up the volume. There are other examples elsewhere on the album: The ticking clocks at the beginning of "Time", etc.

Richard, if you're reading, do you have any other favorite examples?

Do I have to set the volume controll to the 'middle', about -23db, so that the routine has an area to work within?

No, that's the beauty of this algorithm. It doesn't interact with the player software's volume at all. It alters the actual wave data of the tracks at the bit level. Just use your volume like you always have, set it to where it sounds good. You can benefit from this algorithm at any volume setting, even 0db (which I often run at when I'm alone in the car).



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Tony Fabris