Spotify has changed its loudness normalization playback target level!
This is huge. I noticed this ca. 2 days ago. The level seems to have dropped very close to the iTunes or Tidal standard. Ca. -14 LUFS ... give or take. I'll do some measurements and update this post when I've got some numbers. Update nr. 1: Seems to be targeted to ca. -14 LUFS with some margin of error. I measured the Global Top 50 playlist and it normalized at -14.1 LUFS
Update nr. 2:
I let this playlist (https://open.spotify.com/user/skonrokk/playlist/4ws1ABhXns8fvYc5hdZWxs) play for the night (and then some) ca. 10 hours. Varied material, jazz, fusion, hard rock, Motown, soul, funk... Beatles, Zappa, Prince, 80's etc. After 10 hours it is at -15.3 LUFS (+0.6 dBTP). This is is the same experience that I had with the previous setting they had. And I think it's important for people to understand that not every single song is hitting the (overall) loudness target. What we can say with some confidence is that the super loud material (i.e. the Global Top 50 playlist) will hardly get much louder than -14 LUFS (with some margin of "error" for certain songs), but the program loudness will average to -14 LUFS. Sample playlist of songs that I've mastered recently (77 minutes): https://open.spotify.com/user/skonrokk/playlist/5GjNwixCneW4rGAeMFIWJb Measures @ -14.5 LUFS with true peak at -0.4 dBTP = PLR 14,1. #SkonrokkMastering
I also let another playlist (Playlist Radio based on this onehttps://open.spotify.com/user/skonrokk/playlist/7wKNZz6RbtOVk7WYP5RHGU) go for 1 hour or so last night and it normalized at -14.5 LUFS. This album, "Authentic" by the Nick Tann Trio is -14.3 LUFS (-0.3 dBTP) compared to the 16 bit WAV masters of that album are -15.7 LUFS (-1.0 dBTP) This playlist (Great, current, DYNAMIC) by Ian Shepherd is -14.3 LUFS and -1.1 dBPT (ca. PLR 13). 2 hour long playlist with old school soul music: -15.5 LUFS and -0.1 dBTP https://open.spotify.com/user/skonrokk/playlist/3YhXVj7pZKDlpO54o6GoiJ
2 hours, 28 minutes of random soul, funk, groove, jazz, blues, folk. -15.4 LUFS (+0.4 dBTP).
Stay tuned!
Dynameter by Meterplugs showing the "real" dynamics of the songs.
Insight from iZotope measures the integrated LUFS levels + Momentary Max and Shot-Term LUFS
