Studio credit
Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
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Spotify normalises playback to −14 LUFS using ITU 1770. Listeners can select Loud at −11 LUFS or Quiet at −19 LUFS. Spotify advises keeping true peak below −1 dBTP, and below −2 dBTP for masters louder than the target. This is playback normalisation, not a delivery requirement.
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Transcribed from the published standard, read 2026-09-18. Check it yourself
Nothing here is a requirement to hand in a file at a particular level. Spotify measures whatever is uploaded and applies gain on the way out so that tracks sit at a comparable loudness for the listener. A master will not be rejected for being louder or quieter than −14 LUFS.
The practical consequence is that loudness gained by compression before upload is given straight back by the platform, while the dynamic range spent to get it is not recoverable. What the listener hears is the damage without the level.
Most references quote only the first. The playback target is under the listener's control:
Negative gain is straightforward: a track louder than the target is turned down, which adds no distortion and costs nothing.
Positive gain is capped by headroom. Spotify's own example: if a track measures −20 LUFS and its true peak maximum is −5 dBFS, it is lifted only to −16 LUFS — not all the way to −14 — because lifting further would clip. So a quiet master with little headroom does not reach the target at all, and will still play quieter than the tracks around it.
That is the real argument for leaving true-peak headroom on a quiet or dynamic master: it is what allows the platform to bring it up to the house level.
“If a track loudness level is -20 dB LUFS, and its True Peak maximum is -5 dB FS, we only lift the track up to -16 dB LUFS”
Spotify's published mastering advice:
Read from Spotify's own artist documentation:
Not as a rule. −14 LUFS is what Spotify normalises playback toward, not a delivery requirement, and a master is never rejected for missing it. What matters more is leaving true-peak headroom: a quiet master with peaks close to full scale cannot be lifted all the way to the target, because Spotify caps positive gain to avoid clipping.
It changes the target to −11 LUFS and engages a limiter at −1 dB to prevent clipping, so a dynamic master will be limited on playback for listeners who choose it. The setting is theirs, not the artist's, which is an argument for delivering something that survives the range rather than optimising for one of the three.
They are the same unit but not comparable requirements. −23 LUFS under EBU R 128 is a delivery specification a file must meet to be accepted. −14 LUFS is what Spotify does to a file after it is uploaded. Neither is louder or quieter than the other in any meaningful sense; they are measuring different things for different purposes.
This page is the lookup. Broadcast and Streaming Loudness Specs for Commercials is the explanation behind it.
Masters leave here with the true-peak headroom the platforms actually need, and a measurement report for each deliverable rather than one figure for the set.
Studio credit
Elephant Audio
Audio production · Sound design · Music production
LahorePKEngineering sound since 2018
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