Using my dynamic range metering bridge it’s easy to see how i.e. Soma FM’s Groove Salad live radio station does it to produce the perfect flow of background ambient downtempo music, which we commonly stream while being busy with our daily routine:
Squash all tracks’ dynamic range to the same lowish ~3.5 loudness units according to EBU128, then volume level the resulting tracks to the same average loudness, and voila, nothing sticks out and it just fills the background to kill the silence without ever startling anyone with untoward peaks.
Since having many of that genre’s releases in my local library, and wanting to be just a bit more sustainable in not needlessly streaming ever the same programs over the internet, thus wasting additional resources, I had Roon generate and serve a facsimile and you know what?
Even with volume leveling enabled, the result just didn’t evenly flow and fill the background any more, since repeatedly, details stuck out and grabbed my attention to detract me from whatever I was doing.
Au contraire, my dear fellow audiophile!
If an even flow without unasked for artistic expression is the goal, one should just configure a Raspberry Pi with a loopback device to pipe Roon through, install Ardour DAW including effects plugins from the free software repository and easily do as Soma FM exemplifies.
But then, is there still any value in seeking out boutique recordings of highest resolution and dynamic range, and worshipping bit perfect blackest background jitter and ground plane noise free USB cable modding and what not audiophile snake oil mantra?
One just can’t have it all …