[Junk_Collector]

You would think this sort of functionality would be implemented in sound cards but I can't think of any significant advancement in audio processing in years.

[pbhjpbhj]

Aw man, I'm quite often found wanting audio compression - narrowing of the difference in loudness of sound output - but neither Win10 nor Kubuntu seem to be able to do this ootb.

It would be really good to have on a TV too (no more super-loud explosions interspersed with barely audible speech), and I'm amazed that YouTube seemingly doesn't normalise sound levels at all.

As a relatively new Win10 user I find access to mic levels being buried in device manager to be crazy. Also, not having a default output mix, apparently ...

At least games seem to offer a good range of sound settings.

[7786655]

Youtube does some loudness normalization, but it only changes the volume for the entire video, not for specific sections. It also only makes videos quieter, it will never make them louder. You can see this in the "Volume / Normalized" item of the "Stats for nerds" menu.

[bentcorner]

> As a relatively new Win10 user I find access to mic levels being buried in device manager to be crazy.

Right click on the speaker icon on the bottom right notification area, then click "Open Sound settings"

If you want the legacy sound control panel that you may have been used to from pre-Win10, then from this dialog click "Sound Control Panel" on the right. (Or Win+R "mmsys.cpl")

[kiney]

Should be doable in any Linux Distro using pulseaudio (which i think kubuntu does): wiht module-ladspa-sink you can apply arbitrary ladspa plugins to your stream, there are plenty. And i think alsa also hast native compression support, but not sure.