Comparing audio waveform in a visual and / or numeric way Aside taking screenshots of my favourite DAW software in waveform or frequency view and comparing them, what solution can I use for compare 2 audio waveforms ?

For example if i have 2 video with visual differences I tend to put both on a timeline with "difference" blending mode and check if the video resulting is full black or there's some kind of minor visible differences.

I'm conforming to EBU R 128 one waveform, I want to check if the outputted audio file is identical to the original, or if there was some changes in terms of waveform and decibel correction.

There are plugins, software ways (I'm using Adobe Audition) or ffmpeg commands to show changes in a visual and / or a numeric way (such the pnsr or ssim used for video) ?

The best for me would be a software solution able to show both the waveform with 2 colors and overlayed one over the other for visual comparison + some kind of numeric comparison.

Basically I'm looking for a "Compare / Diff" of notepad++ but for Audio Waveforms.
You could try a SoX and imagemagick solution, which could visually diff spectrograms, for example:

# generate spectrograms with SoX
$ sox 0000001353.noframedrop_Lg.small_1_edit.ogg -n spectrogram -arl -o spectrogram_1.png
$ sox 0000001353.noframedrop_Lg.small_2_edit.ogg -n spectrogram -arl -o spectrogram_2.png

# imagemagick
$ composite spectrogram_1.png spectrogram_2.png -compose difference spectrograms_difference.png


This could give you a quick heads up if there is a difference, similar to how you do for video streams, however is not suited to precisely locating TC positions. Below is an example with one of two source SoX spectrograms generated above (10min speech), and its imagemagick comparison with the other (nonblack indicates a difference):