[VNandor]

   
Eh, I don't know. The average user with an iPhone and buds have a pairing that can get plenty loud. That average use also doesn't typically have some obscure, hard to drive headphone or speakers. 

Well yeah, that's true. I just tried to come up with a somewhat reasonable and possible theory regarding what could cause people to prefer compressed recordings over dynamic ones. Because if they don't do comparisons in a controlled testing enviroment they obviously prefer the compressed ones, don't they?

 

[reginalb]

  Well yeah, that's true. I just tried to come up with a somewhat reasonable and possible theory regarding what could cause people to prefer compressed recordings over dynamic ones. Because if they don't do comparisons in a controlled testing enviroment they obviously prefer the compressed ones, don't they?

 
I haven't seen a well designed a-b trial where compressed music was preferred, I've seen the opposite. 

 

[gregorio]

   
[1] Regarding 3 and 1, there have been studies, and they have determined the exact opposite of what you're asserting. There aren't tons of studies, though, so I thought maybe you knew of some others. I linked to a couple earlier. I think you're just wrong on this one, most people, once exposed to different options, prefer more dynamic recordings. Again, there haven't been tons of studies on this, but that's what they've found.
 
[2] Regarding 2, lots of playback systems actually already do it, just like in regards to 4, where it's actually usually done with software on the way out the door, because it's the broadcasters that are required to ensure compliance, not the people recording the ads. And there was already software in a lot of TVs to do it before it became a mandate for broadcasters.

 
1. No, as far as I know there have been no studies and, the studies you linked to do not disagree with what I'm saying! Those studies assert that given optimal or at least decent quality listening equipment/environments people generally prefer a higher dynamic range when listening to music critically. I agree with that assertion, as it agrees with both my personal experience and my assumptions of other consumers. What I am saying is that most people do not listen to music critically in low ambient noise environments with systems capable of a wide distortion free dynamic range, they listen while exercising, sitting on a bus, train, plane or car, when walking, waiting, shopping or as background when entertaining, working, doing the chores or listening on crappy computer speakers, or even the built-in speakers of hand held devices, while browsing the web. These circumstances account for the vast majority of music consumption and benefit from a narrower dynamic range. I don't know of any studies which support this assertion nor of any which discredit it! Ultimately though even if there are studies which disprove it, they are irrelevant because the industry believes (rightly IMO) that a narrower dynamic range is beneficial in these majority of playback situations.
 
2. Some systems do it to a very rudimentary degree and have done for many years. Broadcasters do ensure compliance, with broadcast limiters and in the case of TV broadcast, by compliance with strict audio specifications required of the creators. If the audio doesn't meet those specs on ingest, the program is rejected for broadcast. Nothing much has changed over the last few decades except that from about 3 years ago the metrics used to measure broadcast audio changed and in some countries compliance is now mandated by law rather than only being a technical requirement by the broadcaster. This was to stop dramatic changes in volume when the commercials came on or when switching channels. In radio broadcast there were and never have been any audio specs for music creators and therefore the radio broadcasters depended solely on broadcast limiters. However, being dumb devices these broadcast limiters created unwanted artefacts, which is one of the reasons why a separate master was commonly created specifically and solely for distribution to radio stations. In theory, TV broadcasters no longer need to employ limiters in the broadcast chain. Limiters built into consumer equipment have their place and can be useful to a limited degree in certain circumstances but also commonly create unexpected and unwanted artefacts.
 
G

 

[reginalb]

   
1. No, as far as I know there have been no studies and, the studies you linked to do not disagree with what I'm saying! Those studies assert that given optimal or at least decent quality listening equipment/environments people generally prefer a higher dynamic range when listening to music critically. I agree with that assertion, as it agrees with both my personal experience and my assumptions of other consumers. What I am saying is that most people do not listen to music critically in low ambient noise environments with systems capable of a wide distortion free dynamic range, they listen while exercising, sitting on a bus, train, plane or car, when walking, waiting, shopping or as background when entertaining, working, doing the chores or listening on crappy computer speakers, or even the built-in speakers of hand held devices, while browsing the web. These circumstances account for the vast majority of music consumption and benefit from a narrower dynamic range. I don't know of any studies which support this assertion nor of any which discredit it! Ultimately though even if there are studies which disprove it, they are irrelevant because the industry believes (rightly IMO) that a narrower dynamic range is beneficial in these majority of playback situations.
 

 
I don't disagree with you that more dynamic recordings are more beneficial in critical listening. But an acceptably dynamic recording is also just fine in the other situations that you mention. 
 
For example, I have listened to albums off of this copy of Come Away With Me: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/84139
 
in the car, while working out, on crappy speakers, while working. In all instances in sounds just fine. It also sounds great listened to critically. Dynamic recordings aren't precluded from any of those situations. Indeed, I would argue that, so long as some minimal level of compression is met, dynamism is always important. Because I don't care if I miss a couple details while I am running (and I suspect most people don't) because my mind is mainly on other things any way. So I probably wouldn't even notice if it was more/less dynamic (plus I run with a pair of headphones that aren't all that great - I care mostly about the fact that they are sweat resistant). 
 
I would argue that people fall in to one of a couple categories:

• The largest group - the group you're talking about. They don't care. You can give them a dynamic recording, or a not dynamic recording, won't make a damn bit of difference to them.
• People that care and sometimes listen to music critically and want dynamic recordings. A group that is smaller, but exists.

 
So, I can market a dyanamic recording to all people in both categories. Group 1 won't care either way any way. Group 2 will care, and will prefer more dynamism. So there are likely very few people that actively prefer less dynamic recordings. 

 

[VNandor]

 So, I can market a dyanamic recording to all people in both categories. Group 1 won't care either way any way. Group 2 will care, and will prefer more dynamism. So there are likely very few people that actively prefer less dynamic recordings. 

 
Which leaves us with the question: Why is the overwhelming majority release dynamically compressed music? Is it easier to master it that way? Is it cheaper to master it that way? Because if your assumption is right about that most people prefer dynamic music at best or not care about it at worst, then there must be some other reason behind the compression. What could be it?

 

[gregorio]

  I would argue that people fall in to one of a couple categories:

• The largest group - the group you're talking about. They don't care. You can give them a dynamic recording, or a not dynamic recording, won't make a damn bit of difference to them.
• People that care and sometimes listen to music critically and want dynamic recordings. A group that is smaller, but exists.

 
So, I can market a dyanamic recording to all people in both categories. Group 1 won't care either way any way. Group 2 will care, and will prefer more dynamism. So there are likely very few people that actively prefer less dynamic recordings. 

 
Your argument is incorrect because it ignores the facts. There is a study, an unpublished study, involving tens of millions of test subjects over a period of several decades! The record industry has learned that customers do care, that they are more likely to prefer and buy the louder more highly compressed tracks. Why do you think there is a "loudness war" in the first place? How do you think it started? And,  why is it so difficult to end it? If your argument were correct, simple market forces would have caused an end to the loudness war a decade ago but instead it's become even worse, why do you think that is? You think audio engineers just like crushing the hell out of their recordings and in defiance of the labels who employ them, labels who according to your argument, would make more money by not over compressing?
 
G

 

[RRod]

  in the car, while working out, on crappy speakers, while working. In all instances in sounds just fine. It also sounds great listened to critically. Dynamic recordings aren't precluded from any of those situations. Indeed, I would argue that, so long as some minimal level of compression is met, dynamism is always important. Because I don't care if I miss a couple details while I am running (and I suspect most people don't) because my mind is mainly on other things any way. So I probably wouldn't even notice if it was more/less dynamic (plus I run with a pair of headphones that aren't all that great - I care mostly about the fact that they are sweat resistant). 

 
I agree that most pop/rock I've heard that isn't compressed all to hell is still perfectly listenable in the car/plane/train. But the fact is that if you're willing to compress it anyway, then when things are peak-normalized you'll end up with a louder track, and louder sounds better. This is why pro-DR people are also pro-replaygain (or some other loudness standardization): if you normalize for loudness instead of peaks, you suddenly take away the advantage of compression and people start to like the bigger peaks of the more dynamic version… supposedly. So far attempts at enforcing loudness normalization, which were supposedly supposed to "end" the "war", haven't really done so, probably because normal people are used to hearing square waves and just want recorded music to be a background for their lives, not an event in-and-of itself (but I'm a pessimist).

 

[reginalb]

   
Your argument is incorrect because it ignores the facts. There is a study, an unpublished study, involving tens of millions of test subjects over a period of several decades! The record industry has learned that customers do care, that they are more likely to prefer and buy the louder more highly compressed tracks. Why do you think there is a "loudness war" in the first place? How do you think it started? And,  why is it so difficult to end it? If your argument were correct, simple market forces would have caused an end to the loudness war a decade ago but instead it's become even worse, why do you think that is? You think audio engineers just like crushing the hell out of their recordings and in defiance of the labels who employ them, labels who according to your argument, would make more money by not over compressing?
 
G

 
Again, it is your facts that are incorrect. There has also been market research that has shown that less dynamic records do not sell better (http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15934). I suspect that part of it is a belief that they will sell better, but there is emerging data that shows that your assumptions are, again, incorrect. You keep making assertions with absolutely nil to back them up, you sound like a Dothraki: "It is known." 
 
If you want to know why it might have been implemented, I think a lot of it likely had to do with grabbing peoples' attention in short bursts of music that they heard (like on the radio). You didn't want to not be noticed on the radio when that was what drove people to go and buy their music. There was a perverse incentive that created what we now see.
 
And to expand on the mistake of using sales as if it were research: there haven't been choices. People went and grabbed an album from the store because they liked the artist. They weren't listening to multiple masters and deciding what they liked, they were grabbing the one thing that they were offered. It is certainly not unheard of for new market research to expose that producers have taken some mistaken belief as fact and run with it, and it can take years to get that sorted. 

 

[gregorio]

  Again, it is your facts that are incorrect. There has also been market research that has shown that less dynamic records do not sell better (http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15934).
 
And to expand on the mistake of using sales as if it were research: there haven't been choices.

 
That is plainly ridiculous! I've been discussing the loudness war with other recording engineers, producers and record execs for at least 20 years. You think that in all that time and with many billions of dollars on the table, no one has ever thought to try something different to gain an edge over the competition? Do you know even the fundamental basics of operating in a highly competitive marketplace?
 
Unfortunately, you have it backwards, research will have absolutely zero effect on the industry unless it can be translated into sales. Until that time or until the labels are forced by law or a technical revolution, they will continue to produce product in a way which is proven to generate the best sales. If you're right and the industry is wrong, why don't you setup your own label? It's cheap to setup a label and you'll be a billionaire in no time!
 
I notice that you deliberately avoided the questions I asked and just invented a response to the one you did answer. I can therefore see where this discussion is going, into the more and more ludicrous in an attempt to support your erroneous beliefs. So I'll leave you alone to moan about the compression on recordings, scanning the DRD for which recordings to buy and/or maybe becoming a billionaire in the near future.
 
G

 

[icebear]

   
Again, it is your facts that are incorrect. There has also been market research that has shown that less dynamic records do not sell better (http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15934). I suspect that part of it is a belief that they will sell better, but there is emerging data that shows that your assumptions are, again, incorrect. You keep making assertions with absolutely nil to back them up, you sound like a Dothraki: "It is known." 
 
If you want to know why it might have been implemented, I think a lot of it likely had to do with grabbing peoples' attention in short bursts of music that they heard (like on the radio). You didn't want to not be noticed on the radio when that was what drove people to go and buy their music. There was a perverse incentive that created what we now see.
 
And to expand on the mistake of using sales as if it were research: there haven't been choices. People went and grabbed an album from the store because they liked the artist. They weren't listening to multiple masters and deciding what they liked, they were grabbing the one thing that they were offered. It is certainly not unheard of for new market research to expose that producers have taken some mistaken belief as fact and run with it, and it can take years to get that sorted. 

 
People didn't go and grabbed, they voted with their wallet, or credit card.
Sold units are making up the charts and artists selling more are more successful in this music industry.
Have all consumers been complaining endlessly on twitter and FB about the lousy sound quality of the product they bought? No, they have NOT

90%+ of people listen to music and not really care too much about audiophile aspects we are fretting about here. Face reality

 

 

[reginalb]

That is plainly ridiculous! I've been discussing the loudness war with other recording engineers, producers and record execs for at least 20 years. You think that in all that time and with many billions of dollars on the table, no one has ever thought to try something different to gain an edge over the competition? Do you know even the fundamental basics of operating in a highly competitive marketplace?

Unfortunately, you have it backwards, research will have absolutely zero effect on the industry unless it can be translated into sales. Until that time or until the labels are forced by law or a technical revolution, they will continue to produce product in a way which is proven to generate the best sales. If you're right and the industry is wrong, why don't you setup your own label? It's cheap to setup a label and you'll be a billionaire in no time!

I notice that you deliberately avoided the questions I asked and just invented a response to the one you did answer. I can therefore see where this discussion is going, into the more and more ludicrous in an attempt to support your erroneous beliefs. So I'll leave you alone to moan about the compression on recordings, scanning the DRD for which recordings to buy and/or maybe becoming a billionaire in the near future.

G

Nothing I've asserted is ridiculous, if you think that any business has a perfect understanding of its consumers you're in lala land. I don't start a record label for a few reasons, the market is saturated, for starters, nobody that opens one today is going to make billions that's just silly. I did start my own software company, and that takes plenty of my time, thanks.

I didn't deliberately about your questions, they sounded rhetorical. I'll just reassert that the vast majority of listeners don't care. Those that do care prefer dynamic recordings. I have evidence of this, you have none for your positions. It would be a Pareto improvement for consumers to see increased dynamics.

Not being a recording engineer, if i had to hazard a guess, by the way, I suspect that the biggest driver behind the heavy compression is cost of production. It's probably quicker and easier to get an album out the door this way. Having worked at large software companies, that's the name of the game, not quality. That is why I started my own, by the way.

Regarding any conversations you have or haven't had over the last twenty years in the music industry, it's called an echo chamber, and it's how bad ideas get perpetuated all the time, even in competitive industries.

People didn't go and grabbed, they voted with their wallet, or credit card.
Sold units are making up the charts and artists selling more are more successful in this music industry.
Have all consumers been complaining endlessly on twitter and FB about the lousy sound quality of the product they bought? No, they have NOT:rolleyes:
90%+ of people listen to music and not really care too much about audiophile aspects we are fretting about here. Face reality  

People choose the albums and artists they like, not recordings. If I want an Adele recording, I have no choice but a crazy compressed album. So by your and Gregorio's logic, I'm "voting with my wallet" that I like compressed music. I don't, as we've seen, so there must be a gaping hole in that logic. I simply don't have a choice.

Certainly most people don't care, that's the real reason you don't see this change (and why some recording engineers are attempting to increase peoples' awareness). Only awareness will ever push any change. Clearly there is a market of people that care about quality or these snake oil DAPs wouldn't sell. The buying public just needs more awareness around the real issues in recording.

 

[icebear]

....
People choose the albums and artists they like, not recordings. If I want an Adele recording, I have no choice but a crazy compressed album. So by your and Gregorio's logic, I'm "voting with my wallet" that I like compressed music. I don't, as we've seen, so there must be a gaping hole in that logic. I simply don't have a choice.

Certainly most people don't care, that's the real reason you don't see this change (and why some recording engineers are attempting to increase peoples' awareness). Only awareness will ever push any change. Clearly there is a market of people that care about quality or these snake oil DAPs wouldn't sell. The buying public just needs more awareness around the real issues in recording.

 
A market is usually driven by what most people accept. If only a few complain, no one changes anything. How do most people listen to music today? They listen on the go, in public transport, on the street, in restaurants, everywhere and they typically use the music as a background for their daily life. They don't sit down in a quiet room and focus on nothing else but listening to music. And they do not analyze the files with some db tool. Given that typical consumer behavior compressed music is actually more suitable than high dynamic range music. Like it or not.

 

[reginalb]

   
A market is usually driven by what most people accept. If only a few complain, no one changes anything. How do most people listen to music today? They listen on the go, in public transport, on the street, in restaurants, everywhere and they typically use the music as a background for their daily life. They don't sit down in a quiet room and focus on nothing else but listening to music. And they do not analyze the files with some db tool. Given that typical consumer behavior compressed music is actually more suitable than high dynamic range music. Like it or not.

 
Certainly the market for people that care about quality, and who actually listen critically, is a pretty small group. But I have no problem listening to acceptably dynamic recordings in any of those situations. I use music as background material, too, after all. And I still don't think that those consumers that use their music exclusively in those situations would notice or care about more dynamic recordings. So they don't really lose out on anything. And those of us that do care, gain. Thus my assertion that it would be a Pareto improvement (Some are better off, while none are worse off). Of course, if it increases cost for the producers (the labels) it won't happen, for the exact reasons you assert, until (and if) more people start to care. 
 
EDIT: This has gotten me thinking, I was trained as a policy analyst (basically applied economics) but ended up in software (because I am mainly interested in national policy, and don't like DC) but if I ever completed my economics training with a PhD (which I've contemplated through the years - I only went through for a masters in Policy Analysis) I think I'd like to do some research on the audio market. I mean, it's really an interesting one to me, that's probably why I'm still here, and still play with DAPs and the like despite my belief that high fidelity sound is pretty well solved. Here's what I find interesting:
 
Market theory depends on a few assumptions (which are never all met - but in many markets we get to some reasonably close approximation). One of the things that breaks down perfect markets are information asymmetries. These occur when at least one party involved in a trade possess more (or better) information than the other(s). More or less. But the audio market might be the only example where it seems that both parties sometimes seem to go in blind, there are examples of producers making dumbfounding design choices, a couple examples are the plethora of DAP's designed with restrictively high output impedance - something that has gotten better, or a certain banned blogger and headphone amp designer that exposed companies that were seemingly completely unaware of major design problems in their own products. In these instances the producers, who presumably employed engineers, seemed blissfully unaware of the issues, and why they were issues. And consumers that purport to love higher fidelity, then go and buy products that distort sound and roll off treble. Things that can only be described as decreasing fidelity. While decrying things like EQ. I mean, it's a truly fun market to follow if you're in to that sort of thing. 
 
I don't even know what my thesis would be, exactly, but I think you could do something really interesting with this market. I think that the producers have gotten savvier in the last few years, while the consumers haven't. So they look more like a traditional information asymmetry, though I do not doubt that many producers believe their outlandish claims. 
 
I previously had thought that my thesis would be on the history of economic development and the impact of weather on it (until the advent of aircon, note the climates where the industry rose), but I think the audiophile market would be even more interesting to study, because it's happening right in front of us, and might actually be instructive of some weird market phenomenon. Anyhow, I've now derailed my own topic. 

 

[RRod]

One question I've always had on the topic is "why haven't genres like jazz and classical fallen prey to loudness?" Certainly us music snobs aren't somehow immune to the wiles of loudness, so why didn't producers latch on to compression/limiting in the same way as other genres? Perhaps there is a stronger tie to live performances as a sonic standard in these genres. What's funny is that as a classical guy I spend a good chunk of time listening to stuff through a compressor, as neither my living room nor my car is a particularly critical listening environment. Yet if you asked me if I wanted stuff more compressed I'd say "hell no", because in those rare cases I do get a quiet house alone, having the full range really rocks.

 

[VNandor]

  One question I've always had on the topic is "why haven't genres like jazz and classical fallen prey to loudness?" Certainly us music snobs aren't somehow immune to the wiles of loudness, so why didn't producers latch on to compression/limiting in the same way as other genres? Perhaps there is a stronger tie to live performances as a sonic standard in these genres. What's funny is that as a classical guy I spend a good chunk of time listening to stuff through a compressor, as neither my living room nor my car is a particularly critical listening environment. Yet if you asked me if I wanted stuff more compressed I'd say "hell no", because in those rare cases I do get a quiet house alone, having the full range really rocks.

One of the possible answers is that classical and jazz may rely on dynamics more than let's say pop and rock. Obviously you don't want your recordings to get compressed, you can do that for yourself if you want to. Magically "decompressing" something is quite hard if not impossible.