I usually only go half conspiritard. I have a theory that they want you to go full on. So I never do.
Are the loudness wars fake so record companies can destroy the music?
Sam here and if the music industry have implimented EBU R 128 for loudness normalisation how come the volume on most digital remastered albums leaving the studio is set to "11" lf the listening volume will be the same across the board for streaming services why bother? l’ll tell you why. By lowering the overall volume after the fact does not repair the damage that has already been done! The goal here is to destroy the sound quality of the music and it makes no difference what side your on because the end result is still the same the album is unlistenable. l remember listening to music before the digital age and you not only heard the music you felt it.Well nothing has changed only now you hear the music and feel pain? Draw your own conclusions friends.
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Once upon a time, people listened to music while they sit still and focused. The creation of portable playback (walkman, for example) started the killing process in mid/late '80s. The nails on the coffin: Individual song download, and, wireless blue tooth ear buds. Nowadays, barely anybody listen to music without mostly distracted by something else (web browsing, flashy music videos, Kindle, you name it). Seriously, when is the last time you would sit still and listen to the music only? I have seen many audiophiles - and they are among the worst: They consistently would not even let the song to finish before hopping to another song or started talking over the music. Why would anybody in the music industry care, if the buying customers don't seem to care? |
WHY WOULD THE MUSIC INDUSTRY ACTIVELY SEEK THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SOUND QUALITY OF MUSIC???!!! I think a fairer question might be would the music industry limit the absolute quality of sound in order to make that same sound APPEAR to be of higher quality to the bulk of listeners who use compromised devices and supposedly make up most of the purchases? Might get a different answer. They could probably find a better but less 'cost-effective' way to do the same thing. If they cared. |
@russashe, to respond to your comments I will address them individually. "How is an LP, recorded and mastered on a digital deck a different format than a CD. The compression and other insults occur in the mix for the master tape/file." I did not make any claims as to how or why. I only cited what has been observed and documented. Again, I have a CD by the Tesky Brothers. I own it and it sounds compressed, and it is according to the DR database. I also own the vinyl LP. It does not sound compressed and in fact it sounds very well recorded. According to the DR database it is less compressed than the CD. I have seen many more examples of this. One can only conclude that the compression does not take place until final mastering and in some, if not many, cases, the vinyl shows less compression. "Also you mention Mark Knopfler but I seem to remember early Dire Straits digital recordings that were pressed to vinyl that were awful. Huge sound stage, remarkable dynamic range, improbable separation, 20-20K response, all the good things that come with great sound without great sound." Well, first off I'm referring to Knopfler's solo work and not Dire Straits. And not all of his solo work is recorded with low levels of compression but a lot of it is and it sounds that way. Second, I don't remember Dire Straits albums sounding bad back in college and my roommate had a rather nice hi-fi system. But I can't make any claims about my perception of sound quality back then. Probably pretty poor. "Compression of the type employed in the ’noise wars’ is a function of digital mastering/editing. In the analog domain compression, like everything else, is quite tricky and has to employed with skill and discretion if you don’t want to get laughed out of the studio." Agreed. But I think it requires skill and discretion regardless of the format. It can and has been done effectively and artistically within the digital format. So it is not a unicorn....but it might be a platypus. "Lastly, you said recently that there is nothing wrong with businesses wanting to maximize profit. While this is true as a standalone statement, when examined in light of what SOME companies and individuals are willing to do to maximize profit it becomes a little less innocuous. ’Wanting’ someone dead is a lot different than murder." I made no claims about what people might do in the name of profits. Anything can be made evil and nothing about the nature of business makes that more or less true than it is with anything else. |
N80, just a comment. You posted, "Vinyl seems less likely to be but is hardly immune. So the format is not the issue." How is an LP, recorded and mastered on a digital deck a different format than a CD. The compression and other insults occur in the mix for the master tape/file. Also you mention Mark Knopfler but I seem to remember early Dire Straits digital recordings that were pressed to vinyl that were awful. Huge sound stage, remarkable dynamic range, improbable separation, 20-20K response, all the good things that come with great sound without great sound. Compression of the type employed in the ’noise wars’ is a function of digital mastering/editing. In the analog domain compression, like everything else, is quite tricky and has to employed with skill and discretion if you don’t want to get laughed out of the studio. Lastly, you said recently that there is nothing wrong with businesses wanting to maximize profit. While this is true as a standalone statement, when examined in light of what SOME companies and individuals are willing to do to maximize profit it becomes a little less innocuous. ’Wanting’ someone dead is a lot different than murder. |
Well, I personally don’t think there is anything sinister about businesses wanting to maximize profits. I’m not saying that business doesn’t and cannot serve other purposes but money is usually the reason there is a business at all. And I agree, money drives the nature of the commodity. However, just because something has a certain feature does not mean that that feature is what makes that thing sell even when the business that makes that thing believes that the feature is what makes it sell. In other words, they might think DR compression sells but I’m not certain that is true. At least not in a linear fashion. For example there is plenty of popular music coming out in which the DR (according to the database) averages around 5. To me, this is unlistenable on a hi-fi system and tolerable on ear buds or in the car. On the other hand a song with a DR of 9 can sound okay on a hi-fi system and just as good in the car or with ear buds. My point being I think the industry convinced itself that more compression = more money. I don’t think that is true. |
My problem with loudness is not just that the quiet passages are boosted, it's that the peaks are compressed. When it's overdone the music feels like it's been subdued with the life and dynamics missing - supermarket/elevator music style. This effect is especially unpalatable with genres like rock or metal as fans of Motorhead on CD might find. One real issue facing headphone users is the level of noise isolation they need from their cans, in-ear, on-ear or over ear? I generally prefer open back phones but I've switched to closed back for my walk to work. I found I had to put the volume way too high to drown out the surprisingly loud road traffic. So with my closed back on ear JVCs I can keep the volume low enough to still hear my surroundings and also the music. A fair bit of outside noise still gets in but a totally closed back over ear phone wouldn't be suitable for commuting either. Therefore it's easy to conclude that as long as download / headphone users remain the target audience, then the mainstream use of heavy compression is going to remain. |
@rickytickytwo, Yes, and all the nice delusions we like to to entertain in our heads can’t change that brutal fact. Nor can what most people tell us or would like us to believe. Honesty amongst the successful rich and famous is virtually unknown. And behind them stand the impossibly wealthy. As they say, if you want to uncover any answers then ’follow the money’. And if you want some truth, then think for yourself. Once you emerge from the ’education system’ that is. So the obvious conclusion here must be is that loudness sells. |
Agree about Fleming to a certain extent. But ’luck’ often happens to folks who know how to look for it a recognize it even if it wasn’t the exact ’luck’ they were looking for. As far as over compressed audio, again, I agree, there is no conspiracy. But at the same time I think the reason it is used is not as necessary as those using it think it is. Conspiracy or not I still think uberwaltz, Cleeds and dougy are covering something up. Just not sure what it is yet. |
@uberwaltz, 'Over compressed music is just about a requirement for any music to sound acceptable to the masses on the near universal phone and earbuds setup. Us audiophools comprise a tiny segment of the customer base and we are not the ones who are downloading songs and paying for said downloads to our iPod or whatever similar piece of gear.' @dougeyjones, 'There’s no conspiracy here, music is just not being mastered for Audiophiles anymore, if it ever was. It’s being mastered to sound as good as possible on the devices that 98% of the world listen on. Phones, tablets, laptops and earbuds. Is it a sad state of affairs for audiophiles who love dynamic range? Definitely. Is it a conspiracy? Not at all.' Yes, nothing to see here, no conspiracy. They have never promised to give us good sound. If they do it's an accident, it won't happen again. Their business is to sell music. We're not even 1% of their market, and they know we'll buy anyway, despite our complaints. As for big pharma, well that's another story altogether. I find it amazing (and slightly depressing) that after decades and decades of research and untold billions spent doing it, that the single biggest ever medicinal breakthrough only happened to come by through sheer accident. In his own words: "One sometimes finds, what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I suppose that was exactly what I did." — Alexander Fleminghttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming |
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Carp, it was my primary component until just a couple of years ago when I got involved in hi-fi. It was the SA2500 which got great mid-fi reviews back in early 80's and contemporary reviews done decades later reviewed it well too. I used it almost continuously up until about 10 years ago when it went into my cabin in the country which means it sat unused (except on weekends) in temperatures that ranged anywhere from 98 to 20. And still worked well for a long time. Anyway........I digress. buckhorn, I agree that conspiracy theories are off the mark here and I think Occam's Razor is an excellent principle with the exception of when it isn't. And sometimes conspiracy theories exist because they are the most simple explanation, however wrong they might be. |
By definition, the hypersonic effect is above 20 kHz. Most digital music is limited to 1/2 the Nyquist frequency digital sample rate of 44.1 kHz or an audio reproduction of 22.05 kHz. This frequency slightly exceeds the maximum high frequency available on a tape recording machine - which all studios used to record albums prior to the introduction of CD’s and digital recording. The only way to get MORE than 20 kHz on an LP record was through the direct-to-disk-process which was not regularly used. Rather than a deep record company / big pharma conspiracy, I’d say the record companies are or were simply working within the limitations of standard recording technology. I know...not nearly as fear inducing as the big pharma / recording company conspiracy, but the limitations of the tape recording / digital sampling rate does fit Occam’s Razor far better than an involved conspiracy of two unrelated business enterprises conspiring to remove hypersonic frequencies for some undefined benefit to them. However, dynamic range is a completely different subject that has nothing to do with the maximum high frequency available on a specific recording. |
"I think it would be really something if you kept them and toted them around with you from home to home!"Not to steal thoughts, but I do that with some of my singles from when I was three years old. And albums from teenage years. And the turntable. To make it more ridiculous, I barely ever listen to records and never to those. |
Here you go Carp. Read and weep.....😂😂 https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/do-you-have-a-defining-musical-moment-from-your-early-years?h... |
Believe it or not that was one of the very first of 4 records I ever owned! Buried way back in threads from quite a while ago I told the story of my mother buying me a record player for my 13th birthday. Along with 4 singles. 2525 was one of those 4. Nope I don't get sentimental and nope I don't still have them ... Lol. |
You’re right about one thing. Music was much better before 1980, or the invention of cds. In fact, when did the cd become competitive? 1995? And still it’s not vinyl. Pity. But on the upside. Vinyl never went out of style for many of us. Thank goodness. You digital heads can do your thing. Me, I’m vinyl through and through. Fully satisfied. So in short there’s no problem. Reason being is there’s been no decent music available since what, 1993? There you go. |
glupson If compressing makes quiet passages easier to hear, what is the disadvantage? Part of the power and emotion in music is attributable to dynamic range. It’s why composers include such notation in their scores. The nuance of a solo oboe and the thwack of a tympani are two different things. Yet a tympani can also be used to create a gentle roll, which is distinguished (in part) from the thwack by volume difference - dynamic range. ... what is the advantage of not being able to hear quieter passages in uncompressed material? None at all! That’s why we have compression. But you can hear much deeper into a wide DR recording if you’re listening in a quiet room than you can in a noisy subway car. Can it be that complaints about the sound are more due to something else than to the dynamic range?Sometimes. There are many ways to ruin a recording. Overuse of compression is just one of them. |
@cleeds I guess what you are describing is simply not what I experience when it comes to normalization. With Amazon you can switch it on and off and it changes as you listen. So if I'm listening to a compressed song and have normalization "off" and the volume set to where the quietest parts are just audible and then turn normalization 'on' then those barely audible quiet bits are no longer audible. In other words, normalization seems to have defeated the benefit of compression. On the other hand, if playing a non-compressed song with the quiet parts just barely audible and I turn normalization off or on, almost nothing happens. So from an experience standpoint I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean when you say normalization has no effect on compression. I understand it does not change the level of compression or the level of the quiet bits _relative_ to the loud bits. But it does decrease the loudness across the entire DR which lowers the volume of the quiet bits and the loud bits together in which case the quiet bits can become harder to hear. @glupson, I'm guessing, but do not know with any certainty, that producers could selectively compress specific portions of the DR and not just across the whole range. I would assume this is how artful DR compression is used with classical pieces that have extremely wide DRs. I would also think that the effect of DR for the listener would vary with various types of music, recordings and production technique. |
"If you’re on a noisy subway, its easy for quiet passages on a wide DR recording to get lost beneath the ambient noise level of the subway car." I am as lost as n80, just maybe in different ways. If compressing makes quiet passages easier to hear, what is the disadvantage? Better to ask, what is the advantage of not being able to hear quieter passages in uncompressed material? I tried a few of the recordings from that gospel people like to reference (DR database on the Internet) and which seems iffy at its accuracy to me, Some of those with allegedly narrow dynamic range sound horrible to me while some of the others sound just fine, again to me. Can it be that complaints about the sound are more due to something else than to the dynamic range? Could some other step in the production, or fashionable sound, be responsible? |
Same here and the bottom line is i can encode digital audio with various frequencies i have collected and dramatically change the sound of the audio to the point where i can even surpase vinyl proving that my earth frequency encoding technic is the real deal and when other people have tested my technic they have proven it to themeselves. |
Sam here and the hypersonic effect is a proven fact and you can run your own test like i did and prove it to yourself. Why did the big
pharmaceutical companies spend millions on bogus university research studies claiming they could not reproduce the hypersonic effect in there own independent test and to this very day if you do a google search you will find one negative story after another. Why would big pharma care about a little research paper published out of japan in 1999 involving music to the point where 20 years later there still publishing negative storys about the hypersonic effect? perhaps they no something they don't want us to know? |
Normalization has nothing at all to do with this. A recording with very limited dynamic range will sound "louder" than one with a wide dynamic range. It will sound that way even when "normalized" because its average volume is higher. If you’re on a noisy subway, its easy for quiet passages on a wide DR recording to get lost beneath the ambient noise level of the subway car. Whether that signal was normalized or not has absolutely no bearing on it. Do you think AC/DC tends to sound louder than a string quartet? |
@cleeds Please do not confuse me with facts.......;-) But I am confused now. So help me out. Seriously, I'm trying to understand. A piece of music gets DR compressed. That means the range of lowest to highest volume is narrowed. In general this leads to an overall increase in loudness. This makes the quiet bits closer to the louder bits. This helps with low end devices and to overcome ambient noise. But when played through most iPhones the volume is normalized which basically means the volume is decreased relative to non-compressed songs. So when it is normalized those quieter bits are made quieter. That would seem to defeat to a large extent the desired effect of compression. I understand that the compression makes the quiet bits louder _relative_ to the louder bits but if all of it is 'turned down' by normalization then the quieter bits are turned down too. What have I got wrong here? |
n80 ... most of what people hear through ear buds is normalized ... if that normalization decreases the volume of overly compressed songs there is no real benefit even where there is background noise. The softer bits will be made softer by the normalization. To hear them the volume has to be turned up by the user.....just like with an uncompressed song.The use of normalization has nothing at all to do with the industry's overuse of compression. A listener typically sets volume by adjusting it to not allow the level to exceed a certain amount. That's how quiet passages get lost in ambient noise on a recording with wide dynamic range. |
