Control Room RMS meter shows different level than Insight & Sonalksis Meters

Hi! I was doing speaker calibrations with band passed pink noise (500Hz-2kHz) and noticed something odd - while the master output meter in Control Room showed the same Peak values as my Izotope Insight 2 meter and my Sonalksis meter, Control Rooms’s RMS Peak meter was 3.5 dBFS lower than the other 2 meters.

Anyone have an idea why this is? Is there a place to calibrate this? I am new to setting meters up for mixing, etc so pls go easy on me, hehe :sweat_smile:

what happens if you dont band pass, the result are different the same way ?
What pan law you using for that project ?

It could be a peak meter or a RMS meter, not both.
RMS meters show lesser values by design (depends on the crest factor of the signal), they do not show peak values.

Some special meters show both values at the same time, but this is just a method of visualization, not the same measurement.

I have this exact same experience with the Sonalksis FreeG meter. I believe Philipp is referring to the numeric values shown at the bottom of the meter, which show the maximum peak and RMS value since they were last reset.

Referring to those, the maximum peak values are exactly the same between the CR meter and Sonalksis, but the Sonalksis FreeG meters show a maximum RMS of about 4 dB higher than the CR meter. So, I’m not sure which one to use when I’m gain staging, especially now that I the difference isn’t just with the Sonalksis meter; it also happens with the Izotope Insight 2 meter.

I think I found the answer here:

In the setting for the CR meter, down near the bottom, there is a box to check to enable the AES17 standard, which gives it a 3dB boost. I checked that box and now my the CR meter is much more consistent with the Sonalksis meter, although not exactly the same.

Going to admit here that I tried to to understand why this standard exists by reading this, but it was waaaaayyyy over my head: