Technical analysis of top podcasts

What bitrate are some of the most popular podcasts in the world using? And what LUFS value do they run at? We were curious; so here is a sample of some of the most recent podcasts. For more analysis, get our free daily news briefing, or click on the podcast’s name for more detail.

These graphs show the most popular bitrates (for mp3 files only) in stereo (left) and mono (right). They contain all the podcasts we’ve tested, not just the ones in the table below.

In terms of LUFS, the unit of loudness (aka "how loud does this sound"), we show measurements here. Our LUFS FAQ goes into this in more detail. Apple and Google recommend -16 LUFS; this page highlights LUFS values that are more than 3dB outside these recommendations.

> We’ve also looked at podcast app user-agents and availability on other platforms.

> You can find more test results by searching for a podcast and looking at the technical information at the bottom - if we’ve not tested it yet, that will also submit it to the lengthy queue.

If you want to hear the difference to audio at different bitrates and sampling rates, listen to these audio comparisons.

Recent podcasts we’ve tested