Where the hell did dynamic range go?

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Raduque

as someone said above, god forbid you listen to the audio recording the way the artist or composer intended you to :roll:

Personally, I can't stand this trend towards over-compressed music with no dynamic range. I bought a country cd, COUNTRY (yes, shut it) and it sounds horrible due to having no dynamic range. The highs are clipped, and the lows are simply pretty much non-existent.

I have some pretty decent vintage (mid-late 70s) equipment that I use for stereo listening, and while it's far from being "teh best", it still qualifies as miles better then what probably 90% of people listen on. I'd like to have music that lets my gear sound it's best, and not give me a headache.

Don't kid yourself. Some of the audio gear from the 70s is still to this day some very, very good stuff.

I don't think he stated the contrary.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
eeeeeeeeeeeek! Quiet is GOOD! It preserves headroom for FF (fortissimo!). Making the quiet CD's louder with gain dulls the brazen crescendos and weakens the effect of crushing wavefronts of properly recorded bass attacks. Music is life and compression takes the life out of it. Without life there is death and that's what's happening here.

Sure, quiet is fine. Then sudden, unexpected loud parts are not. At least for me. Loud noises put me on edge, even if I'm expecting them.

Now if a recording is just low there is nothing wrong with a 0dB normalize - this will bring the peak level to the max without hurting dynamic range.

That's more what I meant with MP3Gain and ReplayGain. That's what they do - normalize to the peak level without causing distortion.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok let's listen to some Hendrix.

First the original.

Now compressed.

Hey where did you get such a good recording of little wing? The mp3 I have sounds nowhere near as good. There's a lot more hiss and noise. There seems to be more of a presence of soundstage in your version too. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as the compressed one though.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok let's listen to some Hendrix.

First the original.

Now compressed.

Hey where did you get such a good recording of little wing? The mp3 I have sounds nowhere near as good. There's a lot more hiss and noise. There seems to be more of a presence of soundstage in your version too. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as the compressed one though.

MS Dawn has access to loads and loads of master tapes, she probably has those too

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok let's listen to some Hendrix.

First the original.

Now compressed.

Hey where did you get such a good recording of little wing? The mp3 I have sounds nowhere near as good. There's a lot more hiss and noise. There seems to be more of a presence of soundstage in your version too. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as the compressed one though.

MS Dawn has access to loads and loads of master tapes, she probably has those too

/me jealous

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok let's listen to some Hendrix.

First the original.

Now compressed.

Hey where did you get such a good recording of little wing? The mp3 I have sounds nowhere near as good. There's a lot more hiss and noise. There seems to be more of a presence of soundstage in your version too. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as the compressed one though.

he has his sources... they are not talked about...

 

[ShotgunSteven]

You wouldn't have this problem if you had the Bose Wave Music System, I bet. It sounds as good as a system that costs ten times as much.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

Originally posted by: Special K

What is ALC? Can you recommend me a really dynamic track to see how my computer speakers fare?

ALC = Automatic Limit Control.

Try this.

Could you repost that file please? I never got a chance to try it the first time you posted it and now it's giving me a 404. Could you also repost the 2 Hendrix clips?

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: MysticLlama
I've noticed this too, and with a nice sound system it drives me nuts.

The volume level that you can listen to and enjoy on a 1200w RMS system with great speakers without fatigue is far higher than some little crappy system.

Why is this? Shouldn't the same sound level on one system sound the same as the sound level on another? By fatigue, do you just mean a headache from the music being too loud or what?

Originally posted by: MysticLlama
I can listen to things at 10-15db higher easy than my bookshelf speakers in the other room (which are still pretty decent) and have less hearing discomfort.

What exactly do you mean by hearing discomfort? Again, are you just referring to a headache from the music being too loud? It may sound like a dumb question but the only time I could have ever described music as "fatiguing" is if it was turned up too loud and giving me a headache.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Special K

Could you repost that file please? I never got a chance to try it the first time you posted it and now it's giving me a 404. Could you also repost the 2 Hendrix clips?

Where the hell did all the files go? Hehehe so familiar. Stupid leeches.

Let me see what I can do.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: radioouman

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Easy- analog recording equipment was used in the 80's and 90's. Digital equipment started becoming standard around 2000. Digital = compression = loss of range.

Digital does not equal compression.

In fact, due to no noise, your signal to noise ratio in digital is virtually infinite, so you can have much better dynamic range out of digital.

But compression is the problem here. Gotta make your song louder than the next person's.

Digitisation forces you to choose between two discrete values. As such, in the best case, there is a noise added - its value being half the discretisation interval (instead of following the signal, you add or substract a bit in order to fit it into your digital representation)
Granted, this is very small, and usually smaller than what other analog representations have as noise.
(but making songs sound louder makes them sound crappy - I love in songs moments of total silence or times when just an instrument can be heard)

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: Vegitto
Beautiful song, the compression raped it. What I want to know is why people buy vinyls. If the master tapes suck, why won't the vinyl version suck, too?

The vinyl has some problems with: reduced dynamic range (as compared to the CD); incapability to get very sharp changes in signal (see the mechanical/sharp needle method used to read the track). So, mastering for a vinyl is very different from mastering for a CD.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

Originally posted by: Jeff7

I was annoyed actually by the apparent volume changes of CDs over the years. 80's CDs sound so quiet compared to new CDs. However, with my discovery of FLAC's lovely Replaygain, and a nice program called MP3Gain, it's not a problem anymore.
I just like being able to go from Enya's "The Longships", from 1988, to, perhaps, "White and Nerdy" without having to adjust the volume.
I guess normalization was all I was really after in that case.

eeeeeeeeeeeek! Quiet is GOOD! It preserves headroom for FF (fortissimo!). Making the quiet CD's louder with gain dulls the brazen crescendos and weakens the effect of crushing wavefronts of properly recorded bass attacks. Music is life and compression takes the life out of it. Without life there is death and that's what's happening here.

Now if a recording is just low there is nothing wrong with a 0dB normalize - this will bring the peak level to the max without hurting dynamic range.

A low (too low) recording is bad as its signal to noise ratio will be decreased artificially (you can't really reduce noise in during recording, so recording at 1/10 level will make the sound 10 times as strong.
But the normalization would do nothing wrong

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Why do recording engineers screw up their recordings?

It's not the engineers. They know how to produce full range recordings. It's the studios that are forcing them to apply dynamic compression algorithms after mastering so the track sounds better on your fraking iPods. This entire issue has been beaten to death in audiophile forums. Unfortunatley, we have a pop culture that thinks 2" computer speaker combined with a 6" paper woofer is "full range sound" because you've spent $200 for a damn sound card.

The issue has nothing to do with digital -vs- analog.

it started long before ipod. it was done to boost radio play of album singles.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: virtualgames0

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok let's listen to some Hendrix.

First the original.

Now compressed.

Hey where did you get such a good recording of little wing? The mp3 I have sounds nowhere near as good. There's a lot more hiss and noise. There seems to be more of a presence of soundstage in your version too. Mine doesn't sound nearly as bad as the compressed one though.

MS Dawn has access to loads and loads of master tapes, she probably has those too

/me jealous

If you don't mind, can you re-upload them on putfile? They took it down... thanks

 

[Rubycon]

Ok they did get deleted.

Let's try some lounge music.

original

compressed


Neil Young -

original

compressed

 

[Rogodin2]

Will Test Tommorow and give feedback .

Rogo

 

[Pepsi90919]

MS Dawn -- any dave matthews band at your disposal?

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Wow. I stumbled across a box of my older CD's today, some from 1986. I don't have modern releases of the same albums to compare them to, but just comparing them to pretty much any modern release I notice a huge difference. Even when I import it to iTunes it is very evident.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
MS Dawn -- any dave matthews band at your disposal?

No - actually I don't want to turn this into a "request" thread.

Future samples will probably be sound bytes instead of full songs. Gotta keep everyone happy.

 

[MrPickins]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok they did get deleted.

Let's try some lounge music.

original

compressed

That makes me want to pick my saxophone back up. Thanks for the upload!

The original is sooo nice. :beer:

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
Ok they did get deleted.

Let's try some lounge music.

original

compressed


Neil Young -

original

compressed

OK, wtf, I can't tell any difference between either of those two sets. Do you need really good speakers to test those? I'm using a pair of sony MDR-XD400's right now. Not exactly audiophile quality, but $70 headphones are better than what most people get I would think.

Am I just tone deaf or something? I realize compression is a subtle effect, but I can barely tell any difference between those two.

EDIT:

I should also add that I'm not really a fan of either of those two to begin with, and that even the uncompressed versions didn't sound too dynamic to me.

I have a track off the Gladiator soundtrack that would make a good candidate for this, because it is very dynamic.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

Originally posted by: davestar
agreed.

however, U2 at any compression/volume level makes my ears bleed

What has this world come to?

:laugh:

NSFW!

 

[Vic]

It's what I can't stand about today's music really (well, that and the emo and the lack of instrumental solos/musicianship). The loudness is always maxxed out.
I agree with the "made for your iPods" comments. Modern speakers are (for the most part) crap. Today a subwoofer is a 6" cone in a plastic box. A typical speaker is a little 3" plastic cube. Oooohh... but it's got 7.1 surround... :roll:
There's no range, there's no warmth. It's loud to cover the fact that it's fuzzy and muddled. Sure, you can hear the music from all sides but it sounds like sh!t.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Vic
It's what I can't stand about today's music really (well, that and the emo and the lack of instrumental solos/musicianship). The loudness is always maxxed out.
I agree with the "made for your iPods" comments. Modern speakers are (for the most part) crap. Today a subwoofer is a 6" cone in a plastic box. A typical speaker is a little 3" plastic cube. Oooohh... but it's got 7.1 surround... :roll:
There's no range, there's no warmth. It's loud to cover the fact that it's fuzzy and muddled. Sure, you can hear the music from all sides but it sounds like sh!t.

Speaking of all sides - those cheesy, thin-walled enclosures heavily color the sound. A high end loudspeaker cabinet will pass practically NO sound through the cabinet walls. All controlled sound comes from the radiator(s) themselves which can include vents or ports. The air inside those is the effective radiator. Top of the line bass bins feel like granite even when getting driven hard - this kind of craftsmanship never comes cheap though. Try it once! Crank up some hard hitting, thumping bass and feel the sides of subwoofer cabinet.