EBU R 128 s2 — Loudness in Streaming

Anyone delivering both broadcast and streaming hits the same apparent contradiction. European broadcast normalises to −23.0 LUFS. Consumer streaming platforms normalise playback toward figures more than eight units louder. Both are correct, and nothing in R 128 itself explains how they relate.

s2 is the EBU's own answer, and it is not the answer most articles give. It does not say to master louder for streaming.

Read clause g) carefully, because the ordering matters. The recommendation is to stream unchanged at −23.0 LUFS and carry metadata. The −20.0 to −16.0 LUFS window applies only where metadata is NOT being used, and the document calls that value interim.

So it is not a streaming loudness target. It is what a broadcaster may do when it cannot rely on the device to handle gain and dynamics, and wants to keep control of the result rather than leave it to whatever the player does.

The document sets out two streaming situations with, in its words, conflicting requirements. One is playback with sufficiently high gain and headroom and low background noise — it names television receivers and smart speakers — where a dynamic programme reproduces faithfully at its original level.

The other is playback with lower gain and headroom, or higher background noise, and it names smartphones and personal music players. That is the listening situation that pushes distribution louder, and it is the reason a single number cannot serve both.

The practical consequence for anyone delivering to both worlds: produce once to R 128, and treat the streaming level as a distribution decision made downstream rather than a mix decision made at the master.