Recordings are loudness-normalised before speech-to-text, as Live's VOD transcripts were (loudnorm I=-16 before whisper), so a quiet streamer is still heard. It applies to every batch window (transcripts and media.analyze), not live segments. npm test passes.

ddiff --git a/server/providers/whisper.js b/server/providers/whisper.js
iindex 77dee0b..8648fed 100644
---- a/server/providers/whisper.js
++++ b/server/providers/whisper.js
@@@ -81,13 +81,16 @@ function createWhisperProvider(record, { config }) {
          return ch;
      }
  
--    function toWav(src, seconds, signal, timeoutMs, startSec = 0) {
++    function toWav(src, seconds, signal, timeoutMs, startSec = 0, normalize = false) {
          return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
              const wav = path.join(os.tmpdir(), `openvibe-ai-tx-${Date.now()}-${Math.floor(Math.random() * 1e6)}.wav`);
              // startSec: one window of a long recording (media.analyze), decoded from there only.
              const args = ['-y', '-nostdin', ...(startSec > 0 ? ['-ss', String(startSec)] : []), '-i', src];
              if (seconds > 0) args.push('-t', String(seconds));
--            args.push('-vn', '-ac', '1', '-ar', '16000', '-f', 'wav', wav);
++            args.push('-vn', '-ac', '1', '-ar', '16000');
++            // Recordings are loudness-normalised first, as Live's VOD transcripts were: a quiet streamer is still heard.
++            if (normalize) args.push('-af', 'loudnorm=I=-16:TP=-1.5:LRA=11');
++            args.push('-f', 'wav', wav);
              let ff;
              try { ff = spawnTracked('ffmpeg', args); } catch (e) { return reject(new ProviderError(`ffmpeg: ${e.message}`, { code: 'provider.unavailable' })); }
              const kill = () => { try { ff.kill('SIGKILL'); } catch { /* */ } };
@@@ -144,7 +147,7 @@ function createWhisperProvider(record, { config }) {
          if (!available()) throw new ProviderError('whisper.cpp is not installed on this host', { code: 'provider.unavailable' });
          const lane = req.live ? 'live' : 'batch';
          const timeoutMs = req.timeoutMs || 300000;
--        const wav = await toWav(req.filePath, req.seconds || 0, req.signal, timeoutMs, req.startSec || 0);
++        const wav = await toWav(req.filePath, req.seconds || 0, req.signal, timeoutMs, req.startSec || 0, !req.live);
          try {
              await acquire(lane);
              try {