[ucrags84]

So I ripped some CDs with EAC with LAME 320 KBPS, and the sq varied wildly with my X5s and Sony NWZ 729 series

Sarah McLachlan-Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
--Excellent spatial separation, wide sound-stage. Exceptional clarity throughout the lows, mids, and highs

Shinedown-Second Chance
-- The entire recording sounds kinda "squished" like I'm listening to it out of a box. When it gets busy, it gets a bit muddled. There's some distortion in the highs when there's a lot going on, sound stage is narrow and feels thin, lacks impact.

Shawn Mullins- Soul's Core
Wide sound stage, great transients, instruments are clearly discernible, separation is awesome. Bass is present, rich, and balanced even with a flat eq

Five For Fighting-Chances

Only the voices sound okay, everything else sounds rather compressed and "tinny", the bass sounds farty and lacks punch.


I could go on and on, but why are so many newer recordings just lacking sound stage, and having a characteristically thin sound. There are new artists I like, it's just not fun to hear something that sounds dump.

 

[dongringo]

What it usually comes down to is either a lack of funds or a lack of time or both at the end of the recording process as well as the individual skills and/or lack of caring on the part of whoever does the final mix. There are so many factors that come into play and usually an album is finished at the very last minute so what it is at that point is what it is. It really is amazing that often so little time is spent on one of the most important aspects of the process. But it is what it is and we get what we get.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

First!

Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube - The Loudness War

 

[LFF]

TheMarchingMule is correct. It is in part due to the loudness wars.

The current trend in mastering has taken a toll not only on dynamics but also in tone and soundstage. When you master a stereo album most artists and producers want a loud album. One of the tricks to get a louder album is to make sure your middle information (or mono information) is louder than your side information (stereo information). Hence you get an almost monophonic album that is loud as hell and has very little soundstage left. RVG remasters are the same.

By comparison, if you take that same loud album and extract the ambient information along with the soundstage and restore it to something realistic, the end result will usually be at least 4db quieter than before but will sound like even more of a difference.

They sound thin because many producers, artists and engineers believe that it will make it sound good on cheap laptop speakers and iBuds. A lot of studios playback their masters on laptops and iPod iBuds to make sure the music sounds good. Emphasizing the mids and highs really makes a track pop out from any laptop.

I have done this time and time again. Trust me. The Loudness Wars are really killing the music. Aside from killing the music, they have also changed the perspective of what music should sound like and what artists expect a professional master to sound like. It's very sad.

 

[fenixdown110]

Would ReplayGain help somewhat?

 

[LFF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenixdown110 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Would ReplayGain help somewhat?

No. ReplayGain just helps maintain the same volume level so there is no jarring changes in volume from track to track. In other words, it just normalizes the perceived loudness of digital formats.

The only way to fix it, assuming it can be fixed, is to do the following:

1. Re-do the mix & master
2. Re-master the existing mix
3. Apply DSP

1. is the best option but usually the least feasible.
2. is a feasible option but requires skill and/or money to get it done properly.
3. is probably the cheapest but the results aren't always good, let alone great.


See my post here for an example of a serious soundstage problem.