Audacity 2.3.3 iMacOS 10.9.4 iTunes ver 12.6.2.20
This is more of an iTunes issue and I have posted to iTunes forum but I’m hoping that tech savvy audacity users can help resolve my issue.
I record speech with underscore music in Audacity and then export the mixed track as a wav file to my audacity folder.
My average mixed output sound level is only around minus 10db, so plenty of headroom for maximum volume on playback without distortion/boominess.
When opening the wav file in iTunes for the first time, the playback sounds exactly the same as it did when it was mixed in Audacity, but when the wav file is opened a 2nd time and any further time thereafter, the playback is boosted significantly and sounds like garbage.
It makes no difference whether or not the audacity recording is exported in 16, 24 or 32 bit, 44100 hertz or even if the recording is exported from audacity in mp3 format, the result is the same - the first time playback is normal in iTunes, but any subsequent playback of the same file is boosted and sound terrible. The EQ setting in iTunes is set to “NONE”.
I don’t have this problem when opening an Audacity recorded wav file with VLC media player, but I imagine that most people use iTunes as their default media player.