Thanks abaudio. You've explained this very well.

Am I correct in saying that peak-normalizing can be compared to simply turning up the overall volume of a sound system? That is, everything gets lifted by the same amount but the relative differences between individual sounds remains the same. For example if I have two sounds, one and 50 dB and one at 20 Db, and then turned up the volume so that the 20dB one is now 40 dB, then the 50 dB sound would now be 70 dB (the difference remains at 30 db independent of the volume). From a physics point of view this makes perfect sense to me since +3 dB represents a doubling in sound intensity. Thus when a sound is increased from, say, 70 dB to 73 dB, the intensity has doubled. (Note: doubling intensity is not the same as doubling volume. Going from one clarinet to two clarinets is a doubling of intensity but the overall volume only increases a little (by 3 dB), it does not double.)

If my above interpretation is correct, this means that peak-normalizing an audio file just brings it into a workable audio region. The relative difference between individual decibels is kept constant. Thus, any noise present is not made "worse" by comparison to the surrounding individual sounds.

Last edited by Noel96; 01/01/10 03:34 PM.
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