Re: Audio Stay-Level Control?

You're talking about a compressor (and possibly limiter), but it's not as easy as that. Both of those approaches reduce the dynamic range of the source signal -- so if you have music that intentionally uses volume changes, like Bolero, those changes will be wiped out, which probably isn't what you want.

The best solution I've thought of is writing a little app that monitors the level and records each song's peak level into the DB (using a digital sound card, off of a DXS port). That same app could detect song starts, lookup the peak level in the database, and issue IR commands to turn the volume up or down on the receiver.

I haven't done this yet becase 1) I'm way to busy, and 2) It's guaranteed not to work quite right, and volume will tend to creep up or down over time in the absence of some kind of absolute volume control (someone will just happen to be walking in front of the receiver's IR port when the command is issued, for instance). It would be downright irritating to have music either gradually get really, really loud or really, really quiet over a couple of hours of listening.