Live shows are the problem for me bc their stage mics are different from studio mics and have audience noises that cause the volume to vary wildly. Wish I could listen to them but it wakes me up rather than soothes me to sleep. Also have the problem of ads being way too loud compared to the podcast. I do use volume boost to help each podcast be closer to the same volume or when one is too quiet, what I'm looking for is volume leveling within the same episode, e.g. one mic is too loud and the other is too quiet.

I just got deafened by a podcast where the intro was quiet and the first guest was incredibly loud, I would seriously love it if you could implement this option, please.

The ad volume on a badly mastered podcast WOKE UP MY BABY! Please fix this!

This is especially important now that most podcasts are recorded remotely due to pandemic reasons. A lot of difference in input between speakers sometimes.

Would really love to see this. Often my hands are busy while I'm listening (washing up, cooking, cleaning), and if a quiet podcast ends and a loud one begins, or vice versa, it's a nightmare. It's not the same as wanting quiet moments in a generally ok-volume podcast to be amplified, as some here have suggested. That may be useful for some, too - but the issue I have is that some podcasts are a different volume to others, and even within one podcast not all episodes are the same volume. Please would you implement the ability to normalize audio volume?

Yes please! Something like the Levelator app does. There are a few podcasts that insert ads super loudly and it scares me half to death because they're not at a set timestamp. If I could normalize/levelize or limit max volume to a certain DB amount or something, whatever works to protect my ears (and heart), that would be awesome!

Dynamic compression would be such a nice thing to have! No of the other apps has it yet.

This is an ongoing struggle for me as well. I am listening to podcasts while walking the dog and don't have a free hand to adjust the volume. It's bad enough that some podcasts are louder than others... I can almost circumvent this with the custom (per podcast) audio boost; however, there are many podcasts where the volume shifts for advertisements, or a musical interlude, or when callers phone in, or dialogue shifts from interviewer to interviewee... and with these the only practical solution is to level the volume (using dynamic compression or by whatever means will do the trick). And this would be a godsend for listening to podcasts at night on a sleep timer... the worst is being woken up just after you drifted off to sleep by a sudden shift in volume.

Yes, normalization!! I may mean compression, but maybe normalization is the same thing.
We were listening to a podcast this weekend and my wife had to go back and forth with the volume. Even when the same person was talking, their vocal volume was very dynamic.

Same issue as Murrayzz1; stopped listening to BBC and ABC because couldn't hear guests but hosts and laughter were deafening. Volume boost is on.

I've got lots of podcasts from the BBC, who obviously spend a lot of effort making sure that all their podcasts are the same volume, and quite a few from ABC in Australia. The Aussie podcasts are always much louder, sometimes to the extent that if an Aussie podcasts follows a UK one, it hurts my ears! Much like talking to an actual Aussie! (Just a joke - I love Australians).

Yes! The worst are those podcasts where the volume shifts between a host and a guest (often speaking by phone) or in sudden outbursts of musical interludes.

The way to do this is to first reduce the volume of the loud parts (compression) then turn the whole thing up. There are developer packages out there which do compression with very little overhead - this would be a tremendous feature for some podcasts. Ideally, there would be a variable setting that reduces the compression threshold and increases the gain at the same time, effectively raising the volume of the quiet parts without clipping the loud ones.

Volume normalizing, as I understand it, would mean that the volume would remain consistent. When a podcast goes quiet the app would boost it to the 'normal' volume and when the podcast gets louder the app would 'quiet' it to the 'normal' volume. This would eliminate having to constantly adjust the volume.

Normalization is not the same as compression but it would be great to have either option as some podcasts include very loud commercials, which are super annoying.

Here's more information on the latest standard in normalization, EBU-R128.

http://www.r128audio.com/

I'm also looking for normalization, not audio boosting. I listen to a lot of podcasts and many of them have different volume for the host and the guest. It's extremely annoying and this is where normalization would help. Hope it'll get added soon

Would capping the maximum volume be the same effect?

I strongly recommend an audio normalizer to be added. Also a feature "skip music" I'll appreciate very much.

I've seen several comments talking of volume boost. This is something different. I don't need to boost the volume but to have always a similar output regardless the podcast i am listening at that moment.

I've noticed the current implementation will tend to oversaturate podcasts close to normalized volume when boosting. I think it needs some additional smarts or a different library to prevent distorting the sound.