Sound

Listen plays through mpv, so most sound settings map directly to mpv features. This page covers the output device, gapless playback, volume levelling, ReplayGain, the equalizer and compressor, speed and pitch, fades, streaming quality and transcoding, extra mpv options, and the server jukebox.

Most of these settings are in Settings → Playback, in the sections Playback, Audio output, Volume levelling, ReplayGain, mpv, Equalizer, Headphone correction, Compressor and Transcoding. Output device, speed and pitch are also in the Player options popover (the sliders icon in the player bar).

Note: Equalizer, headphone correction, compressor, volume levelling, ReplayGain, speed, pitch and fades are applied by mpv on this computer. They have no effect while you cast to a device or use the server jukebox.

Output device

To choose where sound comes out:

• Settings → Playback → Audio output → Audio device, then Refresh if the device is not listed; or
• right-click the speaker icon in the player bar; or
• use Audio device in the Player options popover.

The first entry, System default, follows the operating system’s default device. The other entries are the devices mpv reports. If the list cannot be read, the error is shown under the row.

More output options in the same section:

Gapless playback

Settings → Playback → Playback → Gapless playback sets mpv’s gapless-audio:

• weak (default): gapless, except when the audio format changes between two songs.
• yes: always gapless.
• no: a short gap between songs.

Listen prepares the next song while the current one plays, so albums and playlists play without a break. Crossfading between songs is not available as a setting; the DJ transitions blend songs that the Auto-DJ or AI DJ picked, and albums stay gapless.

Track fades

Two settings in the Playback section smooth the start and end of songs:

• Fade songs in and out: each song fades in at its start and out at its end over this time. Range 0 to 10 s in steps of 0.5 s; default 1.5 s; 0 turns it off. The AI DJ lowers and raises the music at this speed too (at least 1 s).
• Fade on pause: fades out briefly when you pause and back in when you resume. On by default.

Volume levelling

Volume levelling plays every song equally loud, so a quiet ballad after a loud dance track needs no hand on the volume. It is on by default. Choose the level in Settings → Playback → Volume levelling → Level:

How loud a song is comes from the first of these that knows it:

1. the analysis of the song (its measured loudness),
2. YouTube’s own loudness value, for YouTube Music songs that are not analysed yet (Listen asks YouTube once per song),
3. the song’s ReplayGain tags,
4. nothing: the song plays unchanged.

Loud songs are turned down as far as needed; quiet songs are turned up by at most 6 dB, and a limiter at the end of the sound chain keeps boosted peaks below −1 dB, so nothing clips. Changing the level while a song plays glides to the new loudness instead of jumping. Get info on a song shows the gain it gets and where its loudness came from (row Volume levelling); the log names it too (levelling: <title> −4.2 dB from analysis).

While volume levelling is on, it replaces ReplayGain (it reads the ReplayGain tags itself), so the ReplayGain settings below only matter with Off.

ReplayGain

ReplayGain evens out the loudness of songs that carry ReplayGain tags. In Settings → Playback → ReplayGain:

Equalizer

The equalizer has twelve bands at 31.5, 63, 125, 250, 500 Hz and 1, 2, 3, 4, 6.3, 10 and 16 kHz, each from -12 to +12 dB in steps of 0.5 dB, plus a Pre (preamp) slider with the same range.

To use it:

1. Open Settings → Playback → Equalizer and switch Equalizer on.
2. Drag the sliders, or pick a preset under Presets.

The built-in presets are Acoustic, Bass Boost, Bass Cut, Classical, Electronic, Flat, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Loudness, Pop, Rock, Treble Boost, Treble Cut, V-Shape and Vocal Boost. Choosing a preset sets the bands and resets the preamp to 0.

To save your own preset, set the bands, type a name into Save current as… and press Save. A saved preset appears in the list after the built-in ones, can be deleted with Delete, and takes precedence over a built-in preset of the same name. Reset sets all bands and the preamp back to 0.

Headphone correction

Headphone correction bends your headphones’ sound toward a neutral target, using the measured profiles of AutoEq (MIT licence). About 6000 headphone models are built into Listen, one profile per model (measurements by oratory1990 first, then crinacle, then the other sources), so nothing is downloaded. The correction runs first in the sound chain, before the equalizer, so the equalizer stays your own taste on top of a neutral sound.

A profile belongs to an output, not to Listen as a whole:

1. Play through your headphones (connect them, or pick them as the Audio device).
2. Open Settings → Playback → Headphone correction. This output names the output that plays now.
3. Type the model into Find your headphones (for example WH-1000XM5 or HD 600; hyphens and case don’t matter) and pick it. When the output’s name already says which headphones it is (Bluetooth headphones usually do), Listen suggests the profile before you type.

From then on the profile is applied whenever that output plays, and taken off when another one does. With the audio device on Autoselect, Listen follows the system’s default output (on Linux: pactl get-default-sink, checked twice a second), so connecting Bluetooth headphones or plugging in a wired pair switches the profile within a second. While a DJ transition plays (from loading the next song until the blend has ended) the switch waits and then uses the output that plays at that moment; a transition that is only planned doesn’t hold it up.

On Android the same section is in Settings, above the Equalizer. The phone binds a profile to the output media plays on (Bluetooth, wired, USB or the speaker, by the device’s name), so the same headphones over Bluetooth and over a cable are two outputs, and a switch applies at once, also during a transition.

You can also paste the text of an AutoEq or Equalizer APO ParametricEQ.txt into the search box and choose Use pasted profile. Other outputs lists the profiles bound to outputs that don’t play now; Remove takes one away. Headphone correction (on by default) turns all of them off without forgetting them.

Every profile keeps its preamp, lowered further when a band boosts more than it leaves room for, so the correction itself never clips; volume levelling’s limiter comes after it as usual.

Compressor

The compressor evens out loud and quiet passages. It uses ffmpeg’s acompressor filter inside mpv. It runs after the equalizer.

Switch Compressor on in Settings → Playback → Compressor, then pick a preset (Broadcast, Default, Gentle, Heavy, Light, Limiter, Loud Master, Moderate) or set the values:

Your own compressor presets work like the equalizer presets: type a name, press Save.

Speed and pitch

Open the Player options popover (sliders icon in the player bar). Playback speed runs from 0.5x to 2x. Press 1x to reset. For songs that have been analysed, the readout also shows the resulting tempo, for example 1.25 x / 150.0 BPM.

By default Preserve pitch is on: the music gets faster or slower and keeps its pitch. Switch it off (in the popover or in Settings → Playback → Audio output) to let speed and pitch move together, like a record. Then a row of pitch buttons appears:

• -1st and +1st change the pitch by one semitone.
• With Microtonal pitch controls on (Settings → Playback → Audio output), -10ct and +10ct change it by ten cents.

The readout between the buttons shows the speed and the pitch shift, for example 1.12x +1.96st. Pitch steps are speed steps: a semitone is a speed change by the twelfth root of two, within the 0.5x to 2x limit.

Note: The speed controls are disabled while DJ transitions are possible, because the transitions change the songs’ speed to match their tempos. That is the case when DJ transitions is on and the Auto-DJ or the AI DJ is on, which is the default setup. To change the speed, switch DJ transitions off in Settings → Playback → DJ transitions & song analysis, or leave the Auto-DJ and AI DJ modes (for example choose Off). Speed and pitch have no effect while casting.

Streaming quality and transcoding

Streaming quality (Settings → Playback → Playback) limits the bit rate to save bandwidth:

On Navidrome the server converts the song to MP3 up to the chosen rate; YouTube Music picks a smaller audio format. Local files, downloaded songs and the copies used for DJ analysis stay original.

If you want control over the format, use the Transcoding section. It appears when you have at least one server that is not YouTube Music. Switch Transcode on to ask Navidrome or Jellyfin to convert songs while streaming. It replaces Streaming quality for those servers; YouTube Music keeps that setting. New values apply to songs that start from then on.

mpv: executable and extra options

The mpv section of Settings → Playback is for special cases:

• Executable path: the mpv program to run. Empty uses mpv from your PATH. On Windows the setup wizard and Settings → Advanced → Helper programs manage mpv for you.
• Extra parameters: extra mpv options, one per line, for example --audio-channels=stereo. A missing leading -- is added for you. See the mpv manual for options.
• Reload mpv: stops playback and starts mpv again with the path and parameters above. Changes to path and parameters need this step. The Player options popover has a Reload button too.

Wrong parameters can stop playback from working. Clear the box and reload to go back to the defaults.

Jukebox mode

Some Subsonic-style servers can play music through their own speakers, controlled by a client. If the server answers Listen’s jukebox request, an Audio player row appears at the top of Settings → Playback → Playback:

• mpv (this computer) is the default.
• Jukebox (the server plays) hands the queue, starting at the playing song, to the server. Listen then only controls it: play, pause, stop, seek and volume are sent to the server, and the position is polled every two seconds.

The server administrator has to switch the jukebox on first. Listen sends up to 100 songs of the playing song’s server at a time. Equalizer, compressor, ReplayGain, speed and the DJ features do not apply to the jukebox. If the server turns out to have no jukebox, Listen plays with mpv again and tells you.