There’s also this, may be helpful:
OK, I’ve pondered this a bit further. What I believe you’re saying above is exactly opposite to what I’m experiencing. The non-library Qobuz albums all seem to have proper volume leveling applied when they are called via Roon Radio (or in my case, where I select a Genre to play and set it on shuffle). If I play a non-library album from the artist’s discography it also is correctly volume leveled.
The issue is with the library albums…only 25 albums out of the 95 I have tested so far have any sort of volume leveling associated with them. These albums were all added to my library within the past six months so I would have expected these to have volume leveling info associated with them. My usual “MO” for adding a Qobuz album to my library is from the artist’s discography…I click on a non-library title to read the reviews and then add it to my library by clicking on the + sign. So the question is: am I playing a library or non-library version? If I’m playing from the My Library>Albums page presumably I am playing the library version. I’m also trying to wrap my head around how/why Roon is grabbing a non-library version to play if it’s already in my library.
Thank you for the link.
A bit more to ponder:
I added a Qobuz album to my library today which was definitely “new”…Steve Miller Band “Anthology” for anyone who cares to attempt to duplicate. I added it the usual way…I went to the artist’s main page, opened the discography tab, selected the album and then clicked on the “+” sign to add. I then go to My Library>Albums and select it to play. No volume leveling…doesn’t matter whether I set it to Auto, Track, or Album. Unless this album truly has no volume leveling info in Qobuz, this is not the expected behavior based on everything I have read so far.
I haven’t got that Steve Miller album so I just added it to my library from Qobuz as you did. I have volume adjustment set to -3db where loudness is unknown:
When played I get volume levelling of -3db as expected.
Thank you for checking. So it looks like there is no volume leveling associated with the Qobuz version of this album, as that replicates my findings. It’s entirely possible then that what I am perceiving as a bug is actually just Qobuz still being woefully inconsistent with their volume leveling application…and I either accept it or switch to Tidal if proper volume leveling is a big deal for me (which it is).
I’m not really following you.
You say you get no volume leveling. Are you setting levelling to 0.0db when loudness is unknown?
No, I’m using the defaults of -5dB/-14LUFS. I guess what I’m saying is Roon is apparently not finding any loudness information in the Quboz tracks so is therefore using the “Volume adjustment when loudness is unknown” setting. I’ve tested this by changing the -5dB setting to a -20dB setting and the tracks are being payed at the -20dB level. I’ve not seen any tracks I’ve ripped ever come close to that so that’s why I consider it a safe test.
I see. Did you experiment with LUFS of -18db or -23db? Maybe that will even out the swings in volume.
I am not sure why the roon default is -14db. I am pretty sure that roon targets the R128 standard level of -23db whilst many streamers including Qobuz target -18db. Maybe things changed over the years.
For what it is worth, I can see that the non-library version of that Steve Miller album does have loudness info:
So there appears to be an integration issue. Roon is not receiving or not applying Qobuz loudness values when adding an album to the library.
Thank you…this more or less correlates with the behavior I have observed through Roon Radio. When it plays a track that is not in my library the loudness info is there. Just of curiosity, how DO you get Roon to play a non-library version of an album that is in your library? It looks like you’re doing it through Roon Radio but somehow it is still showing the “unknown” loudness setting for me if I try to play it by starting Roon Radio on a selected track (using the Steve Miller album we just added).
Bingo. I know that is 180 degrees opposed to what Conner seems to be saying above (where he seemed to be implying that the library version would have the correct loudness values), but there you have it.
I deleted the library version. Then I did a search on the Steve Miller Anthology album in roon. Roon found the Qobuz non-library version and I added that to my queue for playback.
There does seem to be an integration/bug issue here which is opposite to how @connor is interpreting it. I am surprised it is not being reported more often as it is easy to reproduce. Maybe it is a recent regression error that has worked in the past.
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Ok, I just tried something…with very interesting results.
I deleted the Steve Miller Anthology album from my library…I then went back to the now non-library version and played a track which now was showing loudness info. Just as @tripleCrotchet said. I then added the album back to my library and lo and behold: the loudness info was still there when I played a track from the library version. I had seen this behavior before, where I played a track from an album before I added it to my library and in each case, the loudness info did properly transfer over to the library version…but somehow I hadn’t made the connection. So perhaps the act of playing a track before adding to your library somehow sets things right so the loudness info is properly transferred.
Food for thought…
I can confirm this behaviour. Further, with that Steve Miller album I am finding that this behaviour is on a track by track basis, not album by album basis. So, where I have played the non-library Qobuz track, its loudness information will subsequently be transferred to library. But non-played tracks from the rest of the album don’t have their loudness information transferred.
I haven’t had time to check if this is a general issue. Maybe it is just that Steve Miller album. It is a compilation and it is possible that its track loudness values are patchy from the original albums. But that does seem a bit unlikely.
If so, that would be unfortunate as by far the most common scenario I would have for adding a Qobuz album to my library is that first I have listened to a couple of non-library tracks, or maybe even a single non-library track on radio or a playlist. That would explain why the volume levelling experience in hybrid local/Qobuz libraries can seem so inconsistent.
Thank you @tripleCrotchet! My experience more or less dovetails with yours, with one notable exception:
I was working on this some more over the weekend. The formula I arrived at was to 1) delete the Qobuz library version 2) “Play now” the now non-library Qobuz version (to establish album level loudness) 3) “Start radio” on the same non-library version to get the track level loudness info. I only did this for one (random) track for each album 4) Add to my library
I then created a playlist of three randomly selected Qobuz albums (added to my library per the steps above) and then shuffled the playlist to make sure I wasn’t getting the album loudness levels. Every track had loudness information associated with it (in other words, the loudness info transferred over to the library version). I then added the Steve Miller album to the playlist after reading the @tripleCrotchet comments above and those also had loudness levels for all tracks I played.
Not sure why we had slightly different results…perhaps it was playing the album first to establish album loudness?
Either way, it definitely looks like we are on to something here.
Update: It looks like you merely have to start playing the album (the non-library version) for both the album and track loudness info to be transferred when you add it to your library. It does not appear necessary to play any individual tracks.
I didn’t do this roon radio step.
I simply started a Qobuz or roon playlist, where I know very little of the material is in my library. When I heard something I liked, I added the album to my library. When I subsequently play the album only the loudness information for the original played track from the playlist transfers. There is no loudness information transferred for the other tracks.
Looks like there are several different scenarios, all giving different results which is why it is difficult to establish the pattern. Besides your roon radio scenario, another common one for me is adding a Qobuz album without having played it in Qobuz before, because of:
- A recommendation from one of the community “listening now” threads.
- I have heard something on internet radio or FM in the car.
- A recommendation from one of the 3 music magazines I have subscriptions to.