There is some great info here. I’ve had to work my way through the various services excellently described above by The Maartian, tried plugins like Loudness Penalty etc. In the end, I think Mario has it right: send your audio in the best quality they accept, and let them do what they are going to do anyway. Gaming the system is a futile effort.

I first ran into this with my songs on FM radio (anybody remember that?) and during my time doing voice overs spent time talking with their engineers, since I could speak their language. They showed me how they squash the life out of the dynamic range to make everything you hear equally hot. It was useless to try to tweak your song when they were going to do that. And every station was different. Things really haven’t changed, just the platform.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.