What settings are recommended so that recordings made from streaming audio are as close to the original (especially volume) as possible?
Some Windows machines don’t directly support that, but see how you do with the instructions. These change depending on your machine.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_computer_playback_on_windows.html
Koz
Audacity does not apply effects or filters during recording. Whatever the computer supplies is what you get.
The process can be broken. If the computer is old and can’t go fast enough, then you may get a show with ticks and holes in the sound. There’s other possible problems, too.
Some computers require that the show go through the sound card and that can create problems with the computer volume controls. That’s not an Audacity problem. If you can get the show to Audacity, it will record it.
Koz