Dynamic Range DR vs R128 DR

Roon Software Discussion
1

I believe the Dynamic Range information is far from accurate, or reading something other than DR. E.g. New Aurora album is showing DR 12, but in JRiver it’s showing an average of 7, which makes more sense for a highly compressed pop album. Then there’s the first 80s press of Van Halen II; Roon shows DR 7, JRiver more accurately shows an average of DR 12, which generally correct for non-remastered album of the 80’s. In these cases, it would mean the first press of Van Halen is louder than newer compressed pop albums. which is not true. There are many more examples. I believe Roon is reading the R128’s DR rather than the standard DR.

Capture2.JPG1673×545 106 KB

and from JRiver

Capture.JPG1503×431 64 KB

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2

They are using different methods, check the R128 numbers in JRiver, that’s what Roon uses. Not DR.

3

I think they mistakenly put number of people who still listen to Van Halen instead of the actual DR. Seven seems fairly accurate then… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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4

Read the knowledge base about Roon DR any it will explain the difference for you.

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5

Then this is misleading. DR should be higher to show greater dynamic range (as for early pressings), not lower for higher dynamic range. ‘Loudness’ is a better label.

6

Nothing misleading anywhere. Roon’s DR values correspond to the ‘Dynamic Range (R128)’ column in your J River table.

Read this as to why R128 is a better method for computing Dynamic Range than CF (Crest Factor) is:

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Dynamic_Range

7

the knowledge base explains it better, but what I gather this (r128) is more accurate algorithm, but DR is less accurate but is a more widely used/known algorithm. Others can explain it much better than me.

8

I explain the difference here:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/what-is-your-highest-dr/19454/25?u=danny

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9

Thank You. I see the point of it, but R128 DR method is not very telling of what one actually hears. DR seems more useful and has been helpful, or better yet displaying the R128 volume reduction that would be applied, which would give an indicator as to how loud the album is so you’re prepared to turn down the volume.

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10

DR is not mean to tell you about loudness, but we agree that that info would be useful outside the file/track info popup

As for crest factor vs r128, i find crest factor misrepresents the dynamic range quite a bit when your music has very short busts of loudness or silence. Maybe you are used to that misrepresentation, but that doesn’t make it good.

if you find yourself reaching for the knob, turn on volume leveling instead.

11

No worries. 80’s and 90’s mastered CDs sound more dynamic than modern pop pressings, but R128 DR says, on average, the opposite. confusing. I understand difference between Loudness and Dynamic Range, audio mastering is an interest of mine.

12

are you looking at tracks or albums? what do you see for tracks?

our track #s seem to match perfectly with jriver in my experience (r128 vs r128, not crest factor dr vs r128)

the album calculations are a time-weighted average… maybe this is incorrect?

13

R128 DR between Roon and J river seem quite accurate. The confusion was more what I heard between R128 DR and standard DR. This thread has turned into a feature request for DR ratings rather than R128 DR ratings. I have changed the title of this thread.

14

Guys, stop staring on numbers and start listening to music.
I love the r128 method used by roon, because now the volume leveling is perfect.
A big thanks to the roon developers for implementing it.

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15

Does kind of remind you of when Homer lost the peanut under the cupboard doesn’t it.

16

I think it’s worth looking at some of the other threads on here about how long Roon 1.3 takes to perform the Audio Analysis, which is exacerbated by larger libraries …which is a function of that R128 is a much more stringent and resource hungry method of measurement of DR

The Crest method of measuring DR was chosen by Foobar and other tools several years ago…purely because it was easier to measure and less resource hungry…not because it was more “accurate” or informative

The bottom line is that R128 is a more informative method of measuring DR…as well as being far more useful for volume levelling

IMHO, we should be encouraging Roon to use the most informative tools available…and encouraging ourselves to “learn” and understand this newer information…rather than asking Roon to revert to using a less informative, less useful and many times simply misleading measurement, just because we are more comfortable with it

If we asked Roon to follow JRiver’s / iTunes lead on these issues, where would Roon be in terms of its offering…Progress and Change usually leads to short periods of discomfort, followed by much longer periods of satisfaction once we fully understand why those changes were beneficial to all

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17

You have misread the post. I requested, maybe a year ago, to implement R128 over Replay Gain, and still all for it. The request is not to remove R128, it’s to display standard DR rating over R128. There’s a big difference here.

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I disagree, standard DR is more intuitive way to represent dynamic range than R128 DR, for purely displaying score purposes. Otherwise, the whole ‘loudness wars’ means nothing. R128 DR shows modern pop CDs have more dynamic range than most 80’s and 90’s pressed cds. It’s contradictory to what we perceive to hear.

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19

Actually, I disagree. The LU DR Roon chose to use does not provide me with what I am looking for; and that is, a quick and easy way to check the relative compression between differing masterings. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I know, if I see a 7 on the crest DR that the mastering it is going to be compressed. The Roon LU DR does not provide this.

Take this for example.

Betty Who
Album Roon LU DR of 7, and a creast DR of 6. The album is good but a modern compressed mess.

Chicago II
Steve wilson mix
Album Roon LU DR of 7 as well and a crest DR of 12. So both are LU DR of 7 in Roon. It is NOT a compressed mastering.

So, Is 7 a good DR? A bad DR? Can’t tell and that is the problem. Especially since, one really is a compressed mess and the other is not. Lets take a look at a specific track from each, and compare LU DR, crest DR, and its waveform courtesy of Audacity.

Betty Who. Track has an LU DR of 4.4 and a crest DR of 5 and this is its waveform:

Seems like it is in line to indicate bad compression, DR 7 and all. However,

Here is a track from Chicago II Steve Wilson Remix, it has a LU DR of 3.8 (worse than the Betty Who track) but a crest DR of 12 and this is its waveform:

chicago ii waveform.JPG736×397 50.7 KB

Seems like a much less compressed waveform. But you can’t tell that from Roon’s LU Readings. In fact, they would indicate that the Betty Who track has LESS compression than the Chicago track.

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20

EXACTLY! thank you for the waveform to prove this.

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