[MLA] Interesting info about Spotify normalization

[Grimm | Eelco]

Dear MLA friends,

An IT friend of mine has noticed that when you engage loudness normalization in Spotify, the app switches to another server… This could mean that Spotify has double inventory of all tracks: an original file and a version with limiter.

The good news is that the limiter could be of higher quality than a real time limiter in a smart phone. The bad news is that it will be hard for them to apply improvements to the limiter quality or offer different normalization targets for stationary and mobile devices. Imagine how much CPU power was needed to process all those files...

I did not check this with my Spotify contact. I am not sure if they will be open about this and I don’t want to upset him with ‘difficult questions’. But it is an interesting datapoint…

Cheers,
Eelco