Spotify's True Peak ceiling for masters is -1 dBTP, tightening to -2 dBTP for masters hotter than -14 LUFS

Beyond the integrated-loudness target, Spotify specifies a True Peak ceiling to protect against distortion in lossy transcoding. Keep the master’s True Peak ‘below -1dB TP (True Peak) max’ — this guards against inter-sample peaks that clip once the audio is encoded to Ogg/Vorbis or AAC. The ceiling tightens for hot masters: ‘If your master is louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, keep True Peak below -2dB to avoid extra distortion,’ because ‘louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion when encoded for streaming.’ This is a mastering-side action independent of playback normalization: even though Spotify turns loud masters down, the encoding still happens at the delivered level, so a hot master needs extra peak headroom. Deliver a single high-quality stereo file; Spotify transcodes all formats internally.

Examples

Master at -14 LUFS: set the true-peak limiter ceiling to -1 dBTP. Master pushed to -10 LUFS (hot): pull the ceiling to -2 dBTP to leave transcoding headroom. In both cases deliver one 24-bit WAV/FLAC at 44.1 kHz or higher.

Assessment

You finish a master at -10 LUFS integrated with a True Peak of -0.5 dBTP. Which Spotify true-peak guideline does this violate, and to what value should you lower the ceiling given the master’s loudness?