What is the standard CD recording level?

[maylar 10+ year member]

I notice quite a difference in playback level between the various CDs that I play. Is there a rule-of-thumb for what level to use when setting gains on your system? A compromise or average number?

Thanks

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[Devil Tiger 10+ year member]

Use test tone with DMM to set gains. Music in the last 10-15 years has been in a "loudness war." Meaning that progressively music has gotten louder and louder and louder and more compressed.

For a more detailed explanation read this: Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[zako 10+ year member]

Well, let's say you set the speaker and tweeter gains using the your louder CD with the goal of keeping your head unit volume level at 3/4th position. This will not work well with the CDs that are not so loud because at that gain level, you will need to turn the head unit volume knob way past the 3/4th position. Therefore, IMO, it's better to set speaker gain using a less loud CD as your reference.

 

[Chriszle 10+ year member]

I set my gains using 0db tones. I edit the music, if the levels are too low.

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

Well, let's say you set the speaker and tweeter gains using the your louder CD with the goal of keeping your head unit volume level at 3/4th position. This will not work well with the CDs that are not so loud because at that gain level, you will need to turn the head unit volume knob way past the 3/4th position. Therefore, IMO, it's better to set speaker gain using a less loud CD as your reference.

Yes, that's my goal. What I'm asking is what level (test tone) corresponds to a "less loud" CD. The Autosound test CDs have -10 dB test tones and I'm wondering if that's an appropriate level to set gains with.

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

I think it's -3 or -6. Can't remember what my tone is, cd I have it on is a few years old. I doubt I even have the file anymore

 

[CHEMMINS 10+ year member]

-5 is about right for todays music. You can play pretty much anything with that. Now chopped and screwed is a different story.

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

If you wanna play just about everything with no clipping then do -3dB. Personally I use -5dB cause I edit a ton of songs and listen to mostly decaf which sits right around -5.