TJ Elite
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2006
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Quote:
I love both of their albums, but it's a shame that their soundtrack for the movie is a bit too hot. Break In-City (Storm The Gate!) is probably the worst example. Compression seems to be part of modern rock CDs, but The Pick of Destiny is at least 3dB too loud in my opinion.
A small amount of dynamic compression can make CDs sound better on mediocre audio systems and in noisy environments like cars and trains, but I find it horrible that ReplayGain gives some albums an average of -10dB or even more!
Last night I intentionally listened to some older CDs (1980-1995) that I have and found them to be very enjoyable compared to some 'remasters' of albums from the same era. The digital transfer and overall SQ might be better on the remasters, but there isn't enough headroom for my taste.
One of these discs was Toto IV and its Album gain value was +2.72dB. I don't have a modern remaster to compare with my CD, so I can't say if later releases of this album sound better or not, but the one I have sounds very good once you turn it up.
The problem is that if I tried to listen to my Toto IV out of my iPod or in my car I would have to turn the volume close to max to even hear something. If I had a very low powered stereo amplifier and inefficient speakers my amp would start clipping while trying to play a disc like this (not a real problem for me because sensitivity of my speakers is 90dB spl (2.83V, 1m) and my amplifier can give 250 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms). So in some respect we are balancing between digital clipping and our amps clipping. The two solutions are to either use dynamic compression (bad) or to get more efficient speakers/headphones or a more powerful amp.
In my opinion the loudness war should finally be ended. One solution could be to apply dynamic compression only to digital downloads from places like iTunes. These files are likely used only with iPods and PC speakers. The record labels could finally leave their CDs cood and the loudness war would finally be over. Or at least it would have mode to the digital realm. Those who hate 'hot' mastering but like digital downloads would have to unfortunately buy the CD and rip it on their HDD.
These are some of my thoughts. I hope someone finds something worth reading in there.
| Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif Seriously? I own that album and it's not loud at all. I'll have to check again. |
I love both of their albums, but it's a shame that their soundtrack for the movie is a bit too hot. Break In-City (Storm The Gate!) is probably the worst example. Compression seems to be part of modern rock CDs, but The Pick of Destiny is at least 3dB too loud in my opinion.
A small amount of dynamic compression can make CDs sound better on mediocre audio systems and in noisy environments like cars and trains, but I find it horrible that ReplayGain gives some albums an average of -10dB or even more!
Last night I intentionally listened to some older CDs (1980-1995) that I have and found them to be very enjoyable compared to some 'remasters' of albums from the same era. The digital transfer and overall SQ might be better on the remasters, but there isn't enough headroom for my taste.
One of these discs was Toto IV and its Album gain value was +2.72dB. I don't have a modern remaster to compare with my CD, so I can't say if later releases of this album sound better or not, but the one I have sounds very good once you turn it up.
The problem is that if I tried to listen to my Toto IV out of my iPod or in my car I would have to turn the volume close to max to even hear something. If I had a very low powered stereo amplifier and inefficient speakers my amp would start clipping while trying to play a disc like this (not a real problem for me because sensitivity of my speakers is 90dB spl (2.83V, 1m) and my amplifier can give 250 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms). So in some respect we are balancing between digital clipping and our amps clipping. The two solutions are to either use dynamic compression (bad) or to get more efficient speakers/headphones or a more powerful amp.
In my opinion the loudness war should finally be ended. One solution could be to apply dynamic compression only to digital downloads from places like iTunes. These files are likely used only with iPods and PC speakers. The record labels could finally leave their CDs cood and the loudness war would finally be over. Or at least it would have mode to the digital realm. Those who hate 'hot' mastering but like digital downloads would have to unfortunately buy the CD and rip it on their HDD.
These are some of my thoughts. I hope someone finds something worth reading in there.
