SoundCheck introduces distortion

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hellman@stanford.edu - 31 Jan 2005 04:00 GMT

I am in the process of transferring my CD collection to iTunes, using
AAC encoding. On one CD I was surprised that several tracks had severe
distortion and lowered my ratings on those, thinking the problem was in
the recording -- though the recording was recent enough that that
shouldn't have been a problem if it was done at all reasonably.

Some sleuthing (and Group Googling) led me to the problem: I had
SoundCheck checked in iTunes Preferences to equalize volume level on
playback and, as an earlier thread here suggested, that could introduce
distortion. I unchecked SoundCheck and the beautiful harp music was
beautiful again, so I moved my ratings back up.

In general, I love my Mac and Apple's products, but I can't believe
they put in such a defective volume equalizer.

Martin

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Donald Hall - 31 Jan 2005 04:52 GMT

> I am in the process of transferring my CD collection to iTunes, using
> AAC encoding. On one CD I was surprised that several tracks had severe
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Martin

You might want to have a look at iVolume
<www.mani.de/en/software/macosx/ivolume/>.

I too have had trouble with Sound Check, but for burning. It either
doesn't work at all, or couldn't handle the test playlist I threw at it
with some extreme level differences.

Regards,

Don

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Donald S. Hall, Ph.D.
Apps & More Software Design, Inc.
http://www.appsandmore.com
don at appsandmore dot com
"Schedule your scripts with Script Timer"

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / January 2005

SoundCheck introduces distortion