Post by steve on Feb 10, 2019 13:08:51 GMT 1
Pipperoo's recent thread about the difference between uncompressed & compressed audio files get me all fired up & I thought I'd lob this out there too.
The Loudness War is by no means a new phenomenon but since the introduction of digital signal processing it has got way out of hand &, subsequently, rafts of re-issues claiming to be remastered & so on are, in fact, just original recordings that have had the dynamic range reduced & the volume turned up so that the quietest bits of your favourite songs have been made louder. while the loudest bits have been made quieter creating an aural brick wall that is just noise.
There was a great piece about this in The New York Times this week in relation to the upcoming Grammy awards with diagrams demonstrating how dynamic range compression (different to data compression) is murdering music.
If you'd like to check on that new, shiny remastered 3 CD deluxe box set in terms of whether or not it's been compressed to within a decibel of its life, there is a dynamic range database online.
Just type in the artist & album title & you'll see a collection of results from all the various issues of your chosen title.
There really is no need for wrecking music someone has spent so much time & effort on & I know artists who deliberately go out of their way to ensure they don't fall into the loudness war trap. As a result their music sounds absolutely incredible & I have the personal option to be able to crank up the volume to a level I want & not what some cigar puffing record executive thinks it should be.
So when you see those words "Digitally remastered" on your next purchase. Don't for one second think it automatically means "better sounding". 8 times out of 10 it doesn't
The Loudness War is by no means a new phenomenon but since the introduction of digital signal processing it has got way out of hand &, subsequently, rafts of re-issues claiming to be remastered & so on are, in fact, just original recordings that have had the dynamic range reduced & the volume turned up so that the quietest bits of your favourite songs have been made louder. while the loudest bits have been made quieter creating an aural brick wall that is just noise.
There was a great piece about this in The New York Times this week in relation to the upcoming Grammy awards with diagrams demonstrating how dynamic range compression (different to data compression) is murdering music.
If you'd like to check on that new, shiny remastered 3 CD deluxe box set in terms of whether or not it's been compressed to within a decibel of its life, there is a dynamic range database online.
Just type in the artist & album title & you'll see a collection of results from all the various issues of your chosen title.
There really is no need for wrecking music someone has spent so much time & effort on & I know artists who deliberately go out of their way to ensure they don't fall into the loudness war trap. As a result their music sounds absolutely incredible & I have the personal option to be able to crank up the volume to a level I want & not what some cigar puffing record executive thinks it should be.
So when you see those words "Digitally remastered" on your next purchase. Don't for one second think it automatically means "better sounding". 8 times out of 10 it doesn't
