How can I determine how loud a WAV file will sound?

Root Mean Square is often used to estimate the loudness of sound files. This is because a sound that is very loud might not be perceived that way if it is very short. Also remember that power increases exponentially with the square of amplitude.

The audio geeks at Hydrogen Audio know a ton about this stuff…check out their free Replay Gain software. You may not need to do any programming at all.

EDIT: Included comment feedback on power vs. amplitude.

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