A visual history of Loudness
- Thread starter Analogous
- Start date
Great read and though the finding is quite intuitive, it is good to see data supporting it.
Which magazine is this?
My personal preference, I always prefer softer music which is less loud. No wonder, I prefer older music to what is being released nowadays
Very difficult for average joe listener like me to say. Can't say for Pop/rock etc unless I listen to the two versions of the same song, but it will definitely kill classical music.
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Deleted member 15865
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You are more likely to hear the softer sounds on poor systems when they are made louder. What percentage of music listeners have audiophile playback systems? Most would still be listening on FM radio or the buds that come with their phones.
On the contrary, try listening to ‘A Meeting by the River’ by Water Lily Acoustics - even on decent systems one is likely to reach for the volume button.
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What it does it makes it easier to listen on mass market systems and earphones...the detailing which you can hear from a uncompressed recording and a good system will be missing from the more commonly used systems hence they reduce range and make softer parts louder and reduce the amplitude of the louder sounds so it can be clear on all systems.
While we audiophiles who make up less than 0.1% of listeners complain and feel sad, the rest of the population are oblivious to whats happening and will prefer the compressed music to an uncompressed one and hence more popular
Good one. But it’s showing only part of the Problem ... Singling out Audio Format/ Genre preferences only for the music loudness levels will be like missing the wood for the trees.
Whats the incremental change in Ambient Noise levels over the recent decades ? Which is an important culprit.
I think the ambient noise levels have risen proportionally in most of the households, depending upon the Electrical / other equipments they’re adding every year, increasing Industrial Activity of the Town ( Construction Activities, Pubs , Bars , Stadiums , Concert Halls) & Increasing Numbers of New Vehicles Registered in Respective RTOs etc.
Not to forget the Increase in World Population over the decade and increasing stress levels of individuals which makes them change their preference for certain (fast food) kind of music, which gives instant high ( and a headache later on, With Earache to everyone else) & instant gratification.
Excellent album overall, Not a month goes without listening to it.
liverpool_for_life
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In general, louder is perceived as better.
As I listen more however, my personal preference is clearly for tracks with high dynamic range. In terms of how the music makes me feel, there's simply no comparison between those and tracks compressed to hell and back. I'll still listen to the latter (and enjoy it by turning the volume down compared to a high DR track) if that's the only choice I have to listen to the music, but by God, I'll wish for an expanded dynamic range.
True by itself a compressed one can sound jarring and once you compare with an uncompressed one, unlistenable..
From what I could gather, almost every single reissue of every genre ( perhaps excluding western classical ? ) is going that way
I like your analogy of “fast food” preferences, with high sugar and salty fried food being successfully mass produced and marketed slickly and conveniently to consumers.
so looking at the scenario it seems MQA is the new MP3?
Easy to stream, easy to access, convenient, loud, takes less storage space, well marketed...most people like it and don’t give a thought about it.
For the minority snobs, there is always the pure-Lossless? (Don’t expect appeasement)
It’s ironic that the format having the highest capacity for dynamic range as compared to older formats (reel to reels , LP EP , cassettes ) has it the least , because of loudness war , mass perception of ‘louder is better’ - and catering to it obviously to sell more. It’s like having an Olympic sized swimming pool and only filling it with 10 inche water.
liverpool_for_life
Well-Known Member
(file) Size matters most
What if the recording doesn't have much dynamic range in it to begin with? It's not as simple as lossless vs lossy compression.
I am guessing that you always have harmonics which go very soft in order to give timbre to sound and that does get effected if you boost it. But my experience is very limited to old Hindi music ..eg Asha/Lata on LPs vs later CDs and that may have other factors like mastering etc as well play a role.
Whether or not (and to what degree ) the recording has dynamic range compression rests on the mastering process and studio executives. Traditionally western classical and jazz CDs from reputed and niche labels targeted for niche markets have very good dynamic range compression, and they sound extremely good on good (not necessarily expensive ) setups , but on boomboxes and soundbars they would sound low and lifeless.
OTOH , one of the most glaring examples of poor implementation of dynamic range compression is the series of Saregama CDs of vintage Bollywood.
Why does youtube videos sound better to untrained ears ? Because of the compression they appear loud. But on any basic stereo setup they induce headache in minutes. Most of the Indian Bollywood CDs manufactured in India post nineties are affected with this symptom. Not that there are exceptions but they are few and far between ( Tips Taal CD comes to mind ).
OTOH , one of the most glaring examples of poor implementation of dynamic range compression is the series of Saregama CDs of vintage Bollywood.
Why does youtube videos sound better to untrained ears ? Because of the compression they appear loud. But on any basic stereo setup they induce headache in minutes. Most of the Indian Bollywood CDs manufactured in India post nineties are affected with this symptom. Not that there are exceptions but they are few and far between ( Tips Taal CD comes to mind ).
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IMO, that can be remedied through amplification. Doesn’t need compressing the dynamic range. It is also largely a non-issue while listening through headphones/earphones as the younger listeners mostly do.
We call them ‘flat’ singers. The better musicians will carefully play with the dynamic range to bring out the most musical effect of their piece.
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On Saregama, their digitisation of old music itself is suspect and most probably a low bitrate. Most of their music on FLACs sound hollow - maybe they applied some equalization on top of that !
Indian Ocean's CDs and soundtrack of black friday are very good..but Yuvraj which has really nice music was recorded so badly that you cant even hear it on a car HiFi
You are right on Jazz/Classical perhaps because folks who heard that did have a decent Hifi System
Indian Ocean's CDs and soundtrack of black friday are very good..but Yuvraj which has really nice music was recorded so badly that you cant even hear it on a car HiFi
You are right on Jazz/Classical perhaps because folks who heard that did have a decent Hifi System
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And probably the sound engineers and technicians working with those labels also listen to decent systems?
I suspect with popular music this problem will only worsen as the newer generations of engineers and technicians bred on boomboxes, soundbars and other mass market systems have indelible aural imprints of loud music in the brains.
Yes horrible V- shaped equalisations applied to bring out the boom boom chik chik .
On Indian Ocean - agreed. I have Kandisa on both CD and their newly reissued LP. Both sound very good.
Their Black Friday OST sounds even better.
I don’t know if you listen to bengali folk , but I would highly recommend albums by Dohar band because they have put extraordinary amount of care in their sound production, with terrific dynamic range , beautiful instrumental separation, midrange clarity and of course wonderful songs . I would happily take any of their CDs to show off a 50K$ setup if I ever get that far fetched opportunity.
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Purchase the Audiolab 6000A Integrated Amplifier at a special offer price.
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