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Peak Volume

Last updated: 2 November 2023

Peak volume refers to the point in an audio file which has the highest signal strength. It isn’t representative of overall loudness because it might only last for a millisecond. If it is too high though it can indicate that the signal is being clipped and distortion is being introduced, reducing the listening experience. This headroom is also needed to ensure files are successfully encoded.

Apple is the most influential body involved in the setting of podcast standards and they recommend that “true-peak value doesn’t exceed -1 dB FS”. We agree that the peak should be below -1 dB.


Header photo courtesy of @chairulfajar_

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It checks things like loudness, silences, restarted sentences, encoding, swearing and metadata.

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