FAQ

The numbers in those boxes represent the measured dynamic range of an album or its individual tracks. DR is short for dynamic range. Lower numbers mean less dynamic range, higher numbers mean higher dynamic range. In terms of audio quality a higher dynamic range generally means better quality. Heavy dynamic range compression during the mastering process is generally detrimental to the audio quality but how much depends on the genre and other factors. An album with DR 6 doesn't necessarily sound overtly bad. And an album with DR 12 doesn't necessarily sound good (but the DR isn't to be blamed at least). For rock/metal a DR of 8 and above is considered okay. Electronic music can still sound okay with DR 5 because it is less dense.

Not here, that's for sure. This site only hosts meta information. People upload log files. This is not a file sharing site and you won't find any illegal content here.

This is a passion project by one person. There is no company involved and there are no financial interests. There are no ads and there is no tracking. Feel free to donate, though.

This site was created in 2009. In that year the so called Pleasurize Music Foundation was established to counteract the so called Loudness War by providing information to mastering engineers and creating awareness of the problem. In addition to that a number, the DR value, would be measured from an album and optionally put on the cover to inform customers about its dynamic range. They were also planning an official database with DR information. But that never really took off. Initially this site, an unoffical database, was just meant to be a temporary solution, but here we are, many years later.

Wikipedia has a good article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

There is the original tool from the PMF (TT DR Offline Meter) that can only read PCM WAV files. It's free.

There is a compatible foobar2000 component, which creates compatible log files and works with all file formats that foobar2000 can read. This is also free.

Both use the original older DR measuring algorithm and aren't actively developed any more.

And there is MAAT DROffline and its more potent version MkII. Both are commercial but are actively developed and use a newer more precise measuring algorithm. MAAT DROffline is the official successor of the old TT DR Offline Meter.

All submissions have to be approved before they show up on the site. The same applies to edits and deletions. This is to prevent vandalism and sharing illegal content. Sometimes it can take a while to process the queue. Just be patient. If indeed an error occurred there should be an error message.