[KingOfTheWild]

Hello fellow head-fiers, I am pretty new to this whole audiophile thing as I have been one for less than a year so bear with me . . . I know that you shouldn't even bother with buying CD's of most modern albums but how far back in time do I have to go to where it is actually worth buying CD's? If I bought a CD from the early to mid 90's would that stuff probably have not suffered from the loudness wars or would it have? I want to own my first high quality album (I want to hear my first high quality song for that matter) and do NOT want an album that has suffered from the loudness wars. Can anybody help?

 

[KingOfTheWild]

I'm ready to make the move from crappy iTunes Store quality music to CD quality.

 

[Swatcsi]

The loudness war started around the 60's and has been getting worse since then. Mastering is all dependent on the engineers and producers. Music from the 2xxx's can be very well mastered where as something from the 90's can be awful and vice-versa. The only way to know if an album has poor production is by listening to it, it depends more on where and who mastered it more-so than what time it was produced in. 

 

[TheAttorney]

You don't have to go back further than today in order to get good sounding CDs.
 
Yes, mastering in general has been getting "louder" over the years. But other aspects of the digital recording/mastering process have been getting better over the same period. And loudness is only one of many characteristics that affect the end result - i.e. how much you will enjoy the album.  
 
So, as long as you do some research to filter out the worst loudness offenders, then you should find albums released today to be as good sounding as albums of 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. If you want to be obsessive about the research, try the Steve Hoffman site, but more generally just follow the music threads here, plus google your intended new album for reviews, plus sometimes Amazon reviews make a comment about SQ.
 
My one proviso is that some people are more upset about the loudness wars than others. But I feel that the loudness card is overplayed, sometimes by people who just follow the herd. Personally, I find that many of the early "quiet" CDs have a flat and lifeless sound. So you need to do some research whatever the decade the CD was mastered.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

I'm not set on this album I am just considering it . . . do you guys know if BloodSugarSexMagik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers suffers a lot from the loudness wars? Or is it pretty well recorded and mastered etc.

 

[TheAttorney]

 
Try this database:
 
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/
 
Takes a bit of getting used to the navigation in this site, but will give you more loudness info than you could possibly imagine.
I think BloodSugarSexMagik comes out relatively well - depending on exactly which mastering you go for. The site lists different editions of the same album - once you work out how to navigate it.
 
Remember my earlier comments though. IMO you shouldn't base your choice solely on the loudness score, as long as you avoid the most extreme examples - the ones deep into the red in the above site..
 

 

[KingOfTheWild]

Allright, thank you TheAttorney. I will definitely pay that site a visit.

 

[MorbidToaster]

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=&search_album=Pretty+Hate+Machine
 
This is horribly disappointing...I've heard the 2010 remaster was very good, but this has other things to say...I wonder how the 2010 vinyl holds up.
 
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=7220
 
Picked this up today though...Very happy to see that score.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

The Blueprint is one that I would like to own too . . . just not in vinyl but that is really impressive! I wonder how the CD compares.
 
EDIT: Does the site only list the vinyl version of The Blueprint or does it have the CD too?

 

[MorbidToaster]

The Blueprint is one that I would like to own too . . . just not in vinyl but that is really impressive! I wonder how the CD compares.
 
EDIT: Does the site only list the vinyl version of The Blueprint or does it have the CD too?

Unfortunately they only list Blueprint 1 on Vinyl. I was trying to find Blueprint 3 as I own that on vinyl too.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

Dang that sucks . . . guess I will just have to start a new thread and ask how The Blueprint vinyl and The Blueprint CD compare sound quality wise. I will start that thread now.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

I'm also interested in Illmatic by Nas and Life After Death by The Notorious B.I.G.
 
EDIT: Man that makes me so glad that Jay-Z put out an album that got such high numbers on that site . . . you got my respect Hov. You, Kanye West & Justin Blaze deserve some real respect. The Blueprint was a job well done . . .  a classic.

 

[Sordel]

There's no rule of thumb on loudness, so don't let it drive you mad. Some albums are only available in post-loudness forms. The main thing to bear in mind is that when an album describes itself as a "deluxe remaster" or something you have to go and do your homework because you can't rely on it being anything other than a hot-mastered version of an album that sounded a lot better in the past. (There's nothing worse than paying extra for a worse version!)
 
Also, bear in mind that not every warm master is bad: the Beatles 2009 stereo remasters are warm, but they are also generally regarded as the best easily-available versions of the Beatles albums in stereo. If you listen to every self-appointed audio expert  on a music forum who wants to tell you about how the disc you just bought sounds awful, you definitely will go mad.

 

[KingOfTheWild]

Yeah, I noticed that a lot of remastered albums are just a lot louder and sound a lot worse than the original album.