Okay, so I'm really anal retentive about my music. I'm going through a lot of my collection and re-ripping a lot of it as WAV files so that I can change where the tracks begin on those songs that have a really crappy cues (such as ones where the new track begins about half a second AFTER the song actually begins, leaving that first half second on the previous track).

Anyway, I've got that down. I know how to do all of that. I'm ripping the whole disc as 1 WAV and then splitting the tracks where I want them.

But I decided that while I'm at it, I might as well try to get the volume level on all of the discs I'm ripping about equal. You know, old CD's sound "quiet" compared to new CD's which are way too loud and have a lot of clipping.

But I'm new to Audacity. I used to just wing this with Nero's sound editor and raise the volume on the quieter discs. I pretty much had it committed to memory how much I had to raise the volume on older discs to get them where I wanted them.

I want all of them at roughly the same volume level.

My question is this. In Audacity, should I use both Amplify and Normalize on all the discs to try to get them all equal? Should I use Normalize first, to get the louder ones and softer ones Normalized to whatever the default is (I think it's -3 db below the 1.0 mark in the WAV form) and then Amplify them all back up up that same 3 db to get them to the maximum without clipping?

Or should I just try to wing it and do trial and error by just using amplify?

If I do both (Normalize then Amplify), what would be the consequences in the resulting sound? Will it sound like shit?

I eagerly await your response or any insight you might have. Any alternatives are also welcome. As an example, I want say "For You" and "MPLSound" (both by Prince, obviously) to be at roughly the same sound level without futher sacrificing any more quality than modern discs already lose by being compressed and clipped, etc.

Thanks.
[Edited 3/31/09 21:11pm]