Volume Normalization vs Replay Gain

[kdq]

I am working on a single 15-album set. I finally ended up just ripping to WAV because I was going to wear out the CDs trying to get what I wanted ripping direct-to-MP3. Some of the tracks on some CDs are markedly quiter than the others (and this is classical pipe organ music, so there shouldn't be that much difference), and some entire CDs are quiter than others (different organs?).

I want to bring them all to pretty much the same volume, across all the CDs (and, if fact, across all my *other* CDs as well). I convert to 192Kb/s Lame, and play back with WinAmp (because I use it to broadcast my music to me). Some tracks have come out amazingly distorted so obviously what I'm doing is wrong.

So, I would like to find out, what is the difference between using the Replay Gain DSP, (which I assume just measures the volumes and sets a tag that tells the player how to adjust the volume of the track), and the various types of Volume Equalization (where I assume the Replay Gain style is the same as the Replay Gain DSP, except just for the track).

I don't want Adaptive equlization, so I guess that just leaves Peak to Peak. But does that work across multiple (sets of) albums?

Wouldn't having both the Replay Gain DSP and the Volume Equalize on at the same time cause problems?

[LtData]

Re: Volume Normalization vs Replay Gain

Yes. The Volume Equalize alters the audio data in the track, the ReplayGain DSP makes track values that supporting players can read and use to adjust the audio data during playback.