How players do volume leveling...

So I'm a recent Roon convert, and its display of the audio signal path got me wondering about how players do volume leveling w/ ReplayGain or R128.

It was always my assumption that this was a lossless process, but Roon converts the samples to 64bit, applies the leveling, then down converts to 24bit, even if the original sample was 16bit. I don't know how this affects the original sample. are the original 16 bits unchanged, with the volume level stuff added on top, or are they different?

I seem to hear the sounds differently, but I'm 99% sure that's just the volume difference playing with my head.

Does anyone know if foobar and jriver do this the same way? I honestly (for like the last 15 years or so) thought the replaygain process was completely lossless. But that's why I majored in fine arts.

 

Yeah, I understand the part about ReplayGain scanning and tagging files. What I was surprised at was how Roon used the RG data to change the volume.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that there was some digital fuckery going on... I assume Roon, by converting samples to 64bit, is being as transparent as possible... I suppose the question is am I sufficiently coddled by not having to reach for the remote whenever a badly mastered brickwalled song comes on to live with the mystery.

If foobar's been doing this to me the whole time and I never noticed, why does it bother me now?

 

Awwh shit, sorry, I nuked the reply there, as I realised I was too sleepy to finish it by adding detail about R128.

I honestly wouldn't sweat it overmuch- as long as it's not changing the original file. Done well, digital volume control is close to transparent. However, if the nervosa is starting to annoy you, turn it off. Choose whichever option distracts you less from listening to the music.

 

Purple glowy dot good. Blue glowy dot BAD.


Plus this started life as a .dsf file, so it's doubly fucked with.