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Topic: What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war? (Read 5169 times) previous topic - next topic
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What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

I'm looking at Foobar's "peak" function... At least I think it's something that comes by default with foobar. Anyways, I watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

It's about "loudness wars" and how artists rushing to make tracks louder actually do it to the detriment of their own music audio quality. Does this mean, when my "peaks" is at "0db" the track is hitting max volume? Does this mean the track suffers from this cranking up of volume? And what exactly does 0db mean on that scale? Similarly the volume knob is "-100 to 0db" I noticed.

Thanks!

What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

Reply #1 –
A waveform consists of samples. Each sample has a value, if we talk about normalized values we have the range -1.0 to +1.0 and with that range 1.0 = 0 dBFS, 0.5 = -6 dBFS, 0.25 = -12 dBFS and so on. Silence (0.0) would be -infinity dB.

dBFS because you need a reference for decibels, in this case the reference is digital full scale.

In fb2k you can click View - Visualizations - Peak Meter. It will show you the highest sample values as you play a track. When a track is constantly hitting 0 dBFS and staying close to it, it's usually very loud (compressed dynamic range etc.).
"I hear it when I see it."

What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: xnor on
A waveform consists of samples. Each sample has a value, if we talk about normalized values we have the range -1.0 to +1.0 and with that range 1.0 = 0 dBFS, 0.5 = -6 dBFS, 0.25 = -12 dBFS and so on. Silence (0.0) would be -infinity dB.

dBFS because you need a reference for decibels, in this case the reference is digital full scale.

In fb2k you can click View - Visualizations - Peak Meter. It will show you the highest sample values as you play a track. When a track is constantly hitting 0 dBFS and staying close to it, it's usually very loud (compressed dynamic range etc.).

Thanks for the reply!
Does compressed dynamic range or hitting 0dBFS often mean the audio quality likely suffers due to the artist upping the volume?

What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

Reply #3 –
Quote
compressed dynamic range
This depends upon the particular effect that particular type of compression has on the particular song in the opinion of the particular listener.

Quote
hitting 0dBFS often
This means very little. I could take a horribly clipressed master and normalise it down to −3 dB. Some masters are normalised below 0 dB by default. It would then sound just as bad but not register as such by the naïve metric of whether it hits 0 dB or not. The main reason to avoid 0 dB is related not to compression or clipping but rather to provide headroom to reduce the risk of intersample overs (thus introducing new clipping) arising from lossy decoders, hardware, etc. What matters is how many samples are clipped; whether or not they are clipped at 0 dB is not relevant, and thinking 0 dB is the key point here is misleading yourself.

Is there going to be anything actually specific to foobar2000 in this thread, or should we move it to General Audio?

What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

Reply #4 –
If you want your track loud and you go through the trouble of squeezing out the last fraction of a dB to increase volume I don't think anyone will normalize to -3 dB. Maybe -0.1 dB but I have tracks that regularly hit 0 dB with their samples exactly.

Sure, if you attenuate the signal by 3 dB it will hit only -3 dB at the peak meter. The important bit, which I wrote above, is staying close to that. When someone is hitting cymbals on the track but the peak meter hardly moves it is usually a sign of extreme compression.


Quote from: Dark_wizzie on
Does compressed dynamic range or hitting 0dBFS often mean the audio quality likely suffers due to the artist upping the volume?

Yeah but it's not (just) the artist's fault.
"I hear it when I see it."

What does 0 dB mean+Does it indicate reduced quality via loudness war?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Dark_wizzie on
Does this mean, when my "peaks" is at "0db" the track is hitting max volume? Does this mean the track suffers from this cranking up of volume?

Peaking at 0dBFS does not necessarily mean the music has fallen victim to the loudness war.  I have some older CDs that are very dynamic and peak right up to full scale.  They sound fantastic.