The loudness war

Yes this loudness craze started during the Radio days and is still being followed by some mastering engineers. Recent Bon jovi , Ryan Adams and U2 albums comes to my mind, wasted my money on them , unplayable

The funniest part is that most Radio stations do have their own compressors to make then heard !!

Regards
Anil

Yup,
It is getting crazier by the day.
It is not just a recent phenomenon. Lots of the older recordings too have this. One recording that comes to mind is the “wall” by pink floyd. Although it is one of the better recordings in rock, you have to hear the mobile fidelity version of the same to understand what you are missing. Compression is there big time in almost 90 percent of rock and pop recordings.
It is good to see that there are some labels which do not get into this destructive practice. Sadly quite a lot of music which most of us hear are compressed.

Thanks for that pointer, Square Wave.

I did not know MF had released their version of WALL>

Next on my shopping list...

Any guys in Mumbai have a copy ?

Would it therefore be safe to say that there are certain Record Labels that maintain a level of quality in production of music and don't release stuff with such issues?

I listen to Jazz and notice that stuff from Verve is always well recorded. I understand Deutsche Gramophone is another great label for Classical.

Would it be a good idea therefore to compile a list of labels that it is "safe" to buy from? Or is it largely engineer-specific?

particleman schrieb:

Would it therefore be safe to say that there are certain Record Labels that maintain a level of quality in production of music and don't release stuff with such issues? I listen to Jazz and notice that stuff from Verve is always well recorded. I understand Deutsche Gramophone is another great label for Classical. Would it be a good idea therefore to compile a list of labels that it is "safe" to buy from? Or is it largely engineer-specific?

Most good labels including the ones you mentioned promote or adhere to some “best practices” when it comes to recording process and final production of the cd that reaches you. They can afford to do this because the customer base is small and are mostly audiophiles. Sadly, mainstream music cannot do this. Low volume levels is considered as ‘WEAK” recording by the masses who own low-fi systems which do not create dynamics. Sad but true.

What is mobile fidelity?

zhopudey schrieb:

What is mobile fidelity?

A Record Label.

Voodoo_CHild schrieb:

zhopudey schrieb: What is mobile fidelity? A Record Label.

Ouch. That was a stupid question And here I was thinking about mobile phones, and wondering whats so great about that

zhopudey schrieb:

And here I was thinking about mobile phones, and wondering whats so great about that :L

You might be on to something. I wonder if sound engineers will start "optimizing" songs for iPod and mobile phone playback. I shudder to think of what the compression levels will be like then!

Voodoo_CHild schrieb:

zhopudey schrieb: What is mobile fidelity? A Record Label.

Voodoo_child's answer is basically correct but there is a little more to what Mobile Fidelity really stood for - it was an audiophile record label started by Stan Ricker who was a mastering engineer. Mobile Fidelity or MoFi spealized in re-mastering certain albums from their original master tapes & created 1/2-speed LP versions of those records. Several of these albums are prized & fetch a handsome price in the used market. There are several wherein they ruined the sound!
Today MoFi also produces CDs which are re-mastered works on (usually) gold CDs.

Hey they have a wiki on this.

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

Something on similiar lines at another forum

http://www.avrevforum.com/showthread.php?t=1297

According to a study released by Cognitive Daily, the average listener struggles to tell the difference in audio quality between the lowest-resolution MP3 files at 64 kbps and the so-called high-resolution 256 kbps files that are sold in limited quantities as “high definition” from the likes of Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s new download site. The study looked at three different resolutions of audio, ranging from Good (64 kbps) to Better (128 kbps) and Best (256 kbps), for two selections of music, including a Santana track and a classical piece by composer Aaron Copeland. The study also asked the group to self-define themselves on a scale of one to nine in terms of how much they consider themselves to be audiophiles (nine being the most critical of listeners and one being a listener who isn’t concerned with audio quality at all). The results show that self-proclaimed audiophiles could better hear the differences between the three grades of audio better than non-audiophile listeners. Fascinatingly, listeners with decades of musical training on various instruments showed no specific gift for hearing the difference between the levels of these low-resolution MP3 files. Where one could find fault with the study is in its methodology. A compact disc, the most successful audio format in the history of the history of the world, packs 16-bit resolution and 1411 kbps data rate. This is many times higher than that of the tested MP3s that are currently being pushed on the market today. Much higher-resolution downloads from less mainstream music websites like Music Giants and iTrax start at 1100 kbps and increase to over 9000 kbps, thus getting to the resolutions that audiophiles heard on truly high-resolution formats like SACD and DVD-Audio. These vastly higher-resolution files have many times more data, allowing for a musical experience that is much closer to what is captured on the master tape simply because of the higher resolution, data rate and sampling rate. Complicated audio events like a cymbal crash require tremendous amounts of data for an audio system to reproduce it in the same way the human ear would hear the sound live. Lower data rate and resolution MP3 files often are criticized for sounding “bright” or “shrill” by audio professionals and mainstream listeners alike when compared to true HD music formats that extend far past the performance of low-resolution, “lossy” (meaning compressed) MP3 files. One noted record producer suggested the difference between the 256 kbps MP3 format in this study is like testing the 0-60 on a Prius vs. a Camry, when true HD resolutions are more like testing a Ferrari. The amount of data and resolution is many times higher and more able to bridge the gap between the physical limitations of audio playback and an actual musical event. The sad commentary here is that the four major record labels are unwilling to market their content at any level of real high definition. Simply put, one-fourth the resolution of a 25-year-old compact disc (256 kbps) format is not “high-resolution” anything, despite what Apple says. The majors fought over the differences between SACD and DVD-Audio, leaving discerning consumers feeling ambivalent about investing in either format because of a lack of titles, complications in system set-up, a lack of video content and overall cost. Yet video games costing $60 to $90 per title sell in volumes that are five times higher than today’s best-selling CDs. High-definition movies on HD DVD and Blu-ray sell in increasingly strong volumes, while over 3,000,000 HDTV sets are sold per month in the United States. The ship has likely sailed for SACD and DVD-Audio, but both the new HD DVD and Blu-ray formats allow huge storage capacity for an audio and video experience that can expand the “album” concept far beyond one or two low-resolution files. But the major labels, as their sales spiral down the toilet bowl, simply fail to release their music in any compelling format that improves on the value proposition or audio quality, thus turning to very low-resolution downloads because they represent the lowest-hanging fruit for a business that simply cannot market its way out of a paper bag. The art of emotionally charged high-resolution music has been left to smaller players, but if you want to hear what the potential of a real download sounds like, listen to the Super HD downloads from Music Giants. There is no comparison between the power of what they are doing and a mere 256 kbps file. by: Jerry Del Colliano