Think Pieces

This over compression is, I assume tied to the fact that CD loudness levels have also gotten louder since the early 2000s. The people who do the mastering (especially for pop music) seem to have sacrificed dynamic range for sheer loudness, in an attempt to make the music stand out more (in a bad way).

Maybe this is being done to appeal and sell the product to a large fan base, who listen to music on ipods with earbuds and other low quality gear. If people don't listen on equipment that can convey dynamic range, might as well give them louder recordings, because they will perceive them as better. 

I think the profusion of ipod like devices, mobile phones, etc. has contributed to the decline of well mastered music. This decline of well mastered music, has probably increased the use of these devices even more. Thus creating a vicious circle of lower quality. 

No wonder vinyl has skyrocketed in the past 10-12 years. Those people who want quality sound, are going back to a format that still provides it. 

There is a fixed limit to the maximum signal level that can be put on a silver disc.

But the discs you've noticed being louder is because of the compression which makes softer sounds louder. So that on some discs there's very little dynamic range at all.

Noting that this is done without exceeding the peak level limits of the particular silver disc format.

While I agree with JA that classical recordings are becoming technically better, mostly through simpler miking, they may still need to use dynmaic range adjustements (compression) so that we can hear the quieter moments, yet without having the neighbours sue us over the really loud parts.

As a volunteer recorder of classical concerts for a Canberra community FM station I have to 'normalise' every edited concert file, so that it will just fit within FM's dynamic range.

Timbo, I understand the difference between compression and loudness. I was merely stating that maybe they were linked, for the reasons I explained in my post. It's possible that I did not communicate that very well.

Here is the loudness stuff I was talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

http://www.das-kaiserreich.net/kategorie/library/the-loudness-war.html

http://www.dynamicrange.de/en/how-did-loudness-war-start

Interesting, but sad reading...

Compression is something I have been keeping my ears on for a while now, so I'm glad to see the topic resurface. I have been hearing forms of compression happening throughout the industry and in my own way have been trying to raise the flag for us to take the time to look at our sources and playback equipment  and find out why our systems overall have been squeezed .  What I'm saying is our components and speakers are not giving the dynamics (I'm not talking loud) we once had.

In exploring this I have found some flaws in equipment and speaker designs that are causing this to happen. I think while we are looking at the signal part of compression we should also be looking at the physical contribution to squeezing the sound. As much as we talk about improvements in stereo over the last few years, high end audio has been heading down a path that started around the early 90's that has taken us further away from true dynamics. We are with the over designing of our components sucking the life out of the music. We turn on our stereos and hear them less dynamic and not able to play the music, then we start to put blame on the source. It's not just the source, but design flaws in the over dampening of the components.  Every time you dampen you are squeezing the signal. This is ok if you are starting with something that is too active to begin with, but when you start to squeeze the squeezed you can only go in one direction which is a problem that high end audio has been doing for years.

For the last 20 years I have been "undoing" audio systems to get back the dynamics. A lot of people don't want to hear this because of their investments and the thought that bigger is better, but as a result we are sitting with systems that can't play the music, and we will keep heading down this road till we start to think about the audio signal and how delicate it really is and how dampening it has caused these problems.

When I do my experiments for listeners to show them the problem they are in shock, and can't believe that we have let this happen, but the fact is that there is more to building equipment than the circuit, and more to building speakers than moving air. The audio signal is "vibration" and when you damp this vibration you "squeeze" the sound and this is a big part of what people are hearing.

At the same time I paint this picture I would also like to show the positive side. There are products on the market that have incorporated good design and sound. They are not on the radar necessarily because of their low price but when we (MGA/RoomTune) put these products through the same design-tuning-listening tests as the over built products they shined. This to me shows that the advancements of HiFi are very much alive and well and that the listener has every opportunity to have their dream sound. Sherwood for example produced an incredible sounding receiver (when tuned properly) and Magnavox a killer sounding DVD player used as a CD only. These two products together with a little tweaking cast a beautiful soundstage that rivals the best of the best in good room conditions.

When I first introduced these products to my high end friends there was a little smiling going on till the music began, then all jaws were on the floor. The over built designs left the building as the soundstage grew by at least double in size and the tonal balance was far more musical. From this point on when the disbelief showed itself I brought back in the over built products, hooked them up and the stage collapsed back into squeezed, tini and with obvious holes in the stage. I'm not interested in embarrassing well reguarded well reviewed golden eared products, but instead would like to bring to attention that maybe we should be taking a serious look at why we are not producing soundstages that compare to the recordings actual size. It's like from the mid 80's to mid 90's we were heading there (fantastic sound), then over night we decided to make our good sounding high end products into boat anchors and even though it was obvious that the soundstages were suffering we kept moving in this direction without flags being raised and anyone speaking up about the loss of sound. We started opening up these products and finding them full of sound deadening materials, over built chassis, and parts and cable that were way over sized. When asked why, the answer was because the parts are vibrating and vibration is distortion.

FOLKS? Audio is vibration and so is the music signal and you have killed it. Some how this industry went down a path of harmonic destruction and made a theory behind the thought and we closed our ears and excepted it. Now people are writing about why high end audio has declined so greatly. Have you been to a show lately? Shows are better organized then ever for the high end but the sound isn't there.

If I'm a music lover and I go to a high end audio show I want to hear something that blows me away. I want someone to show me how to get great sound. I don't want to go to my friends house and hear a 8ft wide 4ft deep and 6ft tall soundstage. I want to walk into a room and have it full of sound and a soundstage to the walls and beyond. If high end audio can't compete with todays Hi Fi headphones, why have it? Your going to take someone that is listening to a big (I'm not saying correct) headphone soundstage and set them in a room listening to this squeezed sound and try to turn them on to it? Not going to happen. Stop for a second with me and put on your memory caps. Compare the size of soundstages of the late 90's to todays typical audiophile stage and if you are honest with yourself you will agree that the stages have gotten smaller. It's not more detail, it's less information.

Don't believe me, follow me on tuneland and I'll show you, or invite me to show you here with a few brave souls.

Hi John

Hope you guys are doing great!  Absolutely, I'll go back through and try to find where I have posted and add the tag, and let me know if there are any other things I might need to do to stay within the rules. Also I invite you to visit us anytime on TuneLand.

michael green

MGA/RoomTune