Loudness analysis question

I have a question about the Global Analysis for loudness. When I run the analysis on an entire track (e.g. Maybe I’m Amazed by Wings) it shows the maximim left channel peak as -9.74dB and the right as -8.13dB, but when I play the track and watch the Level Meter the peak levels go much higher, all the way up to 0dB (presumably a brickwall limter has been applied there). Can someone please explain this difference? Thanks.

Are you on the Peaks tab of Global Analysis looking at the Digital row? That should indicate about 0.0 if those are the peaks you’re seeing on the peak meters in the Level Meter. -9 and -8 sound more like Raw Loudness Average values on the Loudness tab. It’s instantaneous peak level vs average loudness level. The average loudness level is showing on the inner darker bars of the Level Meter, the peak levels on the outer brighter bars.

Be aware that the Global Analysis tool analyses the file independently from any plugin.

Thanks for your responses. Okay, so maximum loudness is pre-plugin, but I don’t have any plugins on the track, I just imported a song from mp3. Does the mp3 retain the raw loudness data?

Read bob99 response again.