Let’s not mix up lossy audio file compression as done by mp3 and dynamic range compression. A well done mp3 (typically 200+ kbps and with a modern codec) cannot be distinguished from the original. It is not the reason to run the loudness race. Rather the ability to catch attention for a few seconds is.
And this hurts everybody who listens to music longer than a few seconds.
With mp3gain at least the different volumes of tracks can be compensated for mobile listening. Unfortunately the removal of dynamics and distortion by exagerated dynamic compression is not undone. That’s why older CDs often sound better.

I really love listening to various types of metal, but the genre is so badly squashed. I still listen to and enjoy a lot of artists, but I wish I could find just ONE good dynamic album. I have been recording my own music for a good 10 years, and it really is much more listenable. People that claim it doesn’t make a difference to them probably don’t realize how much that “urge to hit the next track button” or “move on to a different artist” may be coming from the flat dynamics.

It’s funny that people are saying you have to have a $5,000+ sound system to hear the difference in “subtle nuances.” Are you kidding me?! You can hear the difference on $50 computer speakers, $30 headphones, almost anything. I’ve asked my wife who knows nothing about sound and she can hear a difference.

CDs can sound absolutely amazing when treated with the same approach that analogue gets; it’s not the medium. Find the best CD track ever recorded in terms of fidelity and that’s all you need to prove it’s not the medium. There is a happy balance where albums aren’t squashed, but aren’t ridiculously loud in their choruses compared to the verses.

I used to listen to mp3s just to be able to know more music, then find good stuff and buy the CD. I hate the way mp3 sounds, but it does help me to meet new bands. But, since the loudness war took over, CDs sound quite the same as mp3 rips. So it became pointless to spend tens of bucks in a piece of plastic with noise. I quit buying CDs until they sound minimally decent.
BTW, compressing music for radio is unbelievably stupid. Radio stations compress all their sound sources!

Crappy audio gear could have built-in compressors/limiters. This way, CDs could be well produced while cheap boomboxes could still sound loud.
I also agree with Greg’s point.

Regards

cnatro

Honestly, I can’t fault sound engineers for mixing tunes with an eye towards optimal performance on low-end equipment; speakers and headphones sophisticated enough that any bitrate over 128k makes an appreciable difference isn’t quite the exclusive preserve of the most fanatical audiophile and/or the very wealthy, but it’s still a daunting sum of money for those with little disposable income. And I’ve come across some album mixes that go too far the other way, for that matter; at one point I had to jam every equaliser setting in iTunes to the maximum just to make out some parts of my CD copy of Dark Side Of The Moon, albeit on one of the cheapest and nastiest pairs of speakers I’ve ever owned. The quality was sub-optimal to put it charitably, but it was better than not being able to hear half the album for three months while I saved up for some better speakers.

I’m playing an old chart hits compilation CD from late 1986 as I type this. I got it from eBay and today is the frist chance I’ve had to play it all week. They say compilations are the worst offenders for dynamic compression. This one has all the “oomph” where “oomph” should be. The quiet parts of songs are quiet. The loud parts are loud.

One song on it is Billy Joel’s “A Matter Of Trust” so I whipped out my seldom played “The Essential Billy Joel” CD from 2001 (I have his Greatest Hits Vol 1&2 on LP) and ripped a wave file of the same song off both CD’s to look at them in waveform view like the images in the article. Whilst it does look as though the old hits CD might have been compressed a little, the Essential CD is clip city with most of the 4min 10sec off the scale! The old one still has quite a few peaks but even it’s loudest peak is around the same level as the Essential’s quietest moments NOT counting the 1-2-3-4 count-in at the start of the song. The count-in itself is strange: It’s peaks match on both copies but the waveform shows the new one is louder on the quiet bits between Billy’s counting than the old one!

Now, I am almost 30 and have been a fan of music since as long ago as I can remember and have preferred records since my teens. I prefer recording a mixtape on a tape rather than a CD. I have a huge MP3 collection that has filled the gaps in my music collection after my rough patch where I had to sell off my records, tapes and CD’s. (I did not sell my home recorded tapes of course!) But after several years of MP3′ing, I’m now out to re-build my record and CD collection. I had chosen CD’s simply because they are cheaper. Within six months I have changed my mind and am now collecting records instead. That’s not to say I don’t like CD’s. For the most part I like them almost as much as records. But it’s now a gamble as to whether or not a CD is any good - not the band, but the mastering. I may pay up to triple the price of the CD to get the record but at least I know I am getting what I pay for!

Greg’s idea sounds pretty good to me! I just bought the Strut compilation “The Compass Point Story” and was excited to listen to it, Alex Sadkin is one of the best producers ever as far as I’m concerned and Steve Stanley is an engineering genius. First track I thought sounded weird, went into the second and the drums seemed to disappear. Looked at the audio files in Audacity and it’s squashed to hell and some tracks even have digital clipping. I still have my original copy of Grace Jones “Living My Life” CD from the early 80s so was able to compare the audio files - shocking, What depresses me most is the fact that this incredible group of musicians and producers made this amazing music at Compass Point during that period (Sly & Robbie, Wally Badarou, etc), and their work has been destroyed by bad mastering and many people will never hear it the way they intended it to sound; and boy, does it sound incredible on a decent system! Part of the reason I still have that original CD is I’ve always used it as reference when shopping for hi fi components.

One side effect of this may be that CDs mastered in the 80s will start going for premium prices secondhand; I just found the original CD of Living My Life listed on Amazon in the UK and used copies are advertised for 50 pounds.

The solution is to sell CDs with full dynamic range LPCM tracks and also dynamically compressed MP3 files. The MP3 (or AAC or WMA) files take up very little space and would make it easier to transfer the album to a portable MP3 player. Convenience for those that don’t care about sound (or like it compressed) and better sound quality for those of us that appreciate the difference. It is really unfortunate that digital technology which has the power to bring us so much closer to the artist and the live experience is being used to dumb down art to the lowest common denominator.

Has anyone seen, used, owned a DBX Dynamic Range Expander? (1bx, 2bx,3bx) These audio components will take care of most of the these problems. These were designed back in the 70’s & 80’s to compensate for LP’s with the same problems that MP3’s have been effected with now.
Though, joe bloe mp3 player guy will never know what he is missing today, word will get out, later.., that there is more in the music then what iPod ear buds can produce; CD-player, pre-amp, power-amp,(?what are those mp3 guy?) 1 pair Klipsch Klipschorn’s and the music will be there.
Want to take your music with you. Use an uncompressed codec, a pair of AKG, or Snnheiser headphones, and you’re in.. (bigger then earbuds… so what - they sound better) These types are looking to stand out anyway, why not with a good sounding hip pocket player, & phones.
TMO
KLund1

It is not just about compression. I am old enough to remember how mono Lps sounded. One or two microphones. One could hear the room acoustics, one could hear the blending of the instruments (even if they were not all distinct and up front), one could hear style differences of the performers. This meant that emotional expression was more subtle, and more important–not the flat emotional expressionlessness of today.
Result: today’s music has less range of emotional expression and less acoustic realism. It is an assault on the eardrums, a sort of acoustic masturbation, rather than the pleasure of music.

the mp3 standard, when used properly, can be a very dynamic high quality media. Most music gets “compressed” during the final mix to go on the radio - a media with limited dynamics. Now that radio has less and less to do with distributing music, this compression can be avoided! But for music to sound great, it needs to be produced well from the beginning to the end, from the microphones, mixing consoles, effects generators etc. Any one of these layers can compromise the quality, but if they are all done properly, the mp3 version will sound great even at 128k rates (better if higher of course). The real problem most people have is that the speakers they use connected to their ipods or computers don’t have good frequency range or dynamics. With this in mind, I highly suggest reading some of the comments you find on the net about the auxout 400 speaker system.

I spent a lot of time buying a quality stereo system and for what? Yes I do have some fantastic sounding cd’s, but I happen to like rock and pop music so I now actually have a hearing problem, my ears don’t accept these compressed sounds. Has anyone heard of any lawsuits filed against record companies for intensionally distorting what should be acurately recorded music. We need laws to protect the consumer from ruining their hearing because of greedy record companies.

I agree with many that the problem of dynamic compression isn’t a function of iPods-I have loaded many of my 1980’s CD’s onto my iPod and they’re not compressed dynamically. They don’t sound as loud as stuff downloaded from iTunes, of course, but that’s OK with me because I actually like dynamic range.

Lack of compression in the rock genre is killing the music and the artists. I believe new artists’ music gets shunted to the side because much of it is recorded so poorly that people find little to distinguish between.

It’s really bad to see Led Zeppelin release an album like Mothership, which they didn’t need to do in the way they did. How about a remaster that actually keeps or broadens the dynamic range instead of constricting it? How about a DSD remaster or a 24-bit 2-channel version, like what’s become available on MVI’s? Had Zep done something like this with Mothership, marketed it as “the best sounding Zep ever”, the loudness/compression problem would be exposed for what it is and probably on its way out.

This is simply evolution, when a new technology arrives it isn’t allways better than the previous, but it can becam in the future.

The original iPod, just 7 years ago, had
5Gb,so you had to compress music as much as you could. Now you have a 80Gb iPod so you can fit the same music with 15x the quality. It is just a matter of time until we have better quality on an iPod that we ever had on a CD or a Vinil.

Betacam was also better than VHS, but how cares when Betacam were much more expensive. Now you have DVD’s.

I have a 15 year old daughter who has had a portable CD player for years and asked for a MP3 player or IPod to play downloaded music. I was impressed but confused (now more impressed) when she came back and withdrew her request after listening to friends IPods and MP3 players. She said they “sounded aweful” and wanted a new portable CD player instead and didn’t care that it held only 20-30 songs. After reading this discussion, I now know why.

Here’s the quick fix for the attention def-i-sitters who are too anxious to wait for the next trip across the pond to perfection of old school sounds…

Cruise the old stereo shops and buy the old tube power amp and a good used reel to reel.. the thicker the better tape head size man… that’s what counts!

no only joking… find a good 1\2 inch if you can and by the time your done tinkering with wires and the fun of finding a really cool old clean machine.. you’ll already have time under your belt to do what you were born to do…roll on one.

p.s. xtra points for doing your homework and researching which old tubes and connectors work well with others.oh ya, and don’t forget to ask the old guy in the corner for an opinion or two…

p.p.s. don’t let your ears bleed.

The Quality vs Convenience war is already lost - and convenience wins hands down every time. Ever since the end of the ’60’s we’ve been expected to accept less. And so we have.

Do microwaves make your food taste better? Do cell phones sound better than two tin cans and a string? Is your computer on wheels as much fun to drive as a 1967 Mustang?

The answer, of course, is no. Nuked food is faster; a mobile phone fits in your pocket; and fun was outlawed in the 80’s.

Ultimately the punters will choose the path of least resistance because, let’s face it, concentration is hard. And, god forbid, you should want to sit down and listen to music - really listen with your ears and your brain and maybe, just maybe, enjoy it or discuss it!

We get what we deserve and, as far as I can tell, the dross that comes out of Music Corp Central or Laptopville is nothing but wallpaper. It’s soul-less, bland, grey drivel.

The Pod People have spoken: “Keep It Simple for the Stoopids”.

My first audiophile musical experience was in 67 listening to Sgt. Pepper’s. I still have a turntable though I bought my first CD player in 98 and mostly listen to that. I don’t have an MP3 player. I know quite a lot about vinyl, less about CDs, and even less about the CDs I now burn.

My question to any serious techie is whether my burned copies are compromised, whether the files saved on my harddrive are compressed and inferior. My ears are older and I’m not sure it matters as much anymore, but still I’d like to know from a technical standpoint. And does slow burning help? Cheers to all.

At home over this Christmas period I discovered this loudness thing for myself. My dad put on a vinyl and I sat there listening for ages. I music was easy to listen to and didn’t hurt my ears like new music. I sifted through his dusty collection and found Brothers in Arms. Money for Nothing sounded soo good to the point where I can’t listen to the song on my ipod anymore! My question is how do we tackle this problem? Is it not to improve the bitrate/quality of sound from mp3 players??

Look, no one cares about design and construction, about sequencing, or whether the album hangs together, or if the 11 songs tied to the hit exist, or even if there is a physical representation of the music to own. Music as anything other than something constantly shoved at the brain doesn’t exist anymore, so what does sound quality matter now anyway? And besides, most consumers aren’t actually paying for it so why would they care?

Don-
You’re right of course, but that chunk of badly mixed music represents most of the music in the hands of the prime target audience of the record companies- teenagers and twenty-somethings.

The consistency observation is interesting. I’d suggest, though, that if the mixes of the past 5 to 10 years have gotten out of whack with a century’s worth of music before it that was presented naturally and correctly, it’s the new stuff that should be corrected. It doesn’t make sense to break everything else.

The music being put out these days is SOOO incredibly horrible, I’d rather listen to talk radio.

Who cares how it is mixed? If it sucks, it might as well not be mixed at all!!

I grew up in the 70s-90s Graduated HS in 1990. Music was so good then. No “hip-hop” or ‘gangster’ shite, no fake drums (except from the ‘pop’ tunes, but even those were better than the crap pop now)! I loved hard rock, classic rock, Metal, etc.. It was very inspiring to listen to being a guitar player.
THEN….. it turned into ’seattle grunge’ or nothing, then … NOTHING! Rock and Roll is DEAD now.

When I used to buy an album, on 99% of them EVERY SONG was great. Now they just sell singles, one-hit wonders that you could copy and paste over each other and see they are the same with diferent words, but the same exact structure. It has to be ‘punkish’, with 2 chords, NO solos, no tallent!

Just watch American Idol tonight and see for yourself who they are looking to give a record contract to! They were PISSED when we liked Bo, or especially Taylor Hicks. They destroyed him and got rid of him even though he won! They want one Maria Carey after another, or spiked hair idiots who cannot write a song.

Even that show with Tommy Lee as a judge looking for a rock star sucked! They found…shit!

To Rolling Stone: Listen to the music from 1965 to 1995 and figure out why it is a million times better! Tell the Music industry to quit killing music and get back to 1990!
We are all set with flash hits on the radio loved by teenage girls because the other teenage girls tell them it rules.

What about talent? What about guitar solos? Singing that is not just yelling??

I do not expect it to get better, only worse..

Interestingly enough, after reading this article and as many of the referenced articles as I could pull up, I was left thinking of something that wasn’t addressed anywhere…
In the “Everything Louder than Everything Else” article there was a mention of a record store employee who said they never played older cds on their multi-disc cd player because they’re too quiet. That’s the basic problem here. These days music is most often played on iPods and multi-disc cd players and quite often in a shuffle mode. You can’t throw a “quiet cd into the mix of either or you have to stand by the stereo and adjust the volume knob each time it goes back and forth. Although I started out buying vinyl, my current collection of digital music (that I listen to) is almost all new, loud stuff. Therefore it would be annoying to me to buy a cd that was mastered “quiet”. I wouldn’t be able to throw it in the mix. All the iTunes equalizing solutions I tried (to make quiet music fit in with loud music) make the music sound even more compressed. Trying to make a cd mix of old and new music is almost impossible. At any rate, at this point we’re talking about a consistency issue. All music has to remain over-compressed and terrible or it simply just won’t fit in the mix.

IMHO, the music industry is like TV - a democracy. For TV you vote with the channel changer (and that channels sponsors book more ads so the station schedules more of the same shit), or with your dollars at the music shop (and the music companys produce more of the same or similar). And, unfortunately, Joe Blow *wants* crap on TV, and he *wants* overcompressed music. So - now it becomes a matter of trying to educated the masses, which I’m sure will be a daunting task…

Oh, another thing… Uh, life should be more about *people*, no? I mean, heah, music is great, and I listen to it almost constantly (fairly quietly for background mood, or less commonly intently in order to get the message of the music). But shouldn’t we devote more time to others (while we’re listening to music, of course)? Music is just one (small) piece of this mosaic called Life, isn’t it? People, their needs, their problems, their struggles - these pieces of the mosaic are much more important, aren’t they? So let’s do more to help others, and we will end up helping ourselves.

And I hope these bastards stop overcompressing the shit out of music!

I find it ironic that someone who produced an album by “Hawthorne Heights” is saying something about good music.

There’s a good video here on the topic:
http://www.artistshouse music.org/videos/compression

An experienced mastering engineer talking about the loudness issue.

The White Stripes “Elephant” is the best sounding record i think i’ve ever heard. The music breathes so much but it still packs a crunchy punch. Jack White needs to produce more bands because he has it figured out.

rolling stone is just covering this NOW?!?!?!?

this is very old news. RS needs to get with the times. they should have published this article 4-5 years ago.

Back in the sixties people like Brian Wilson and Phil Spector made mixes for transistor radios and the single speaker in your dashboard. They’d have DJ’s play them so that they could drive around and see what they sounded like to the average listener. BUT…and this is a BIG BUT…they also had a seperate mix that was mastered and listened to on the best equipment available at that time. Both versions were saved on the best magnetic tapes that money could buy. What has been done with some of these masters is criminal and some of it is sublime. The devil is in the details and I submit that some truly AMAZING work has been done by loving and caring engineers when transfering these old and deteriorating tapes to digital. I, personally, don’t stick iPods in my ears and probably never will. I prefer to hear music BREATHE and fill a room with warmth. I know that is difficult given everyone’s close proximity these days and the need to not disturb the neighbors, but JEEZ…music IS analog…we hear waveforms and sound MOVES the air…digital is a CARRIER of analog waveforms. Give me a granite-slab turntable with a state-of-the-art pickup and the right diamond stylus and I’ll show you how music is SUPPOSED to sound…

Not that anyone cares about my opinion…

the Good Doctor

We’re living in an age where home recording can end up being the finished product. Compression can turn a recording with relatively inexpensive microphones from sounding like a “demo” to bringing it closer to the speakers and effectively sounding more like a proffessional recording.

As for the Arctic Monkeys album; I enjoyed the album so much that I never actually thought to sit and analyse it’s fidelty. It’s just a great album, even on a crappy Rover car stereo everyday for a couple of months.

Now that downloads are so fast, and hard drives are so big, do we really need such heavily compressed files anymore? Maybe wavs should kick out mp3’s.

What ever happened to the idea of the radio edit? Why not just heavily compress that, and leave the album alone?

I don’t much mind new music being trashed this way, but I’m really dreading the eventual appearance of Beatles remasters. The ’80s versions were bad enough.

Some of the best recordings I have are the Kingston Trio. They sound wonderful. The 50s and the 60s produced some good sounds that stand the test of time.
The processs of recording and replay is done best with less. I hope record producers will someday relearn how to do fine recording and if they do I will begin to buy their work and their artists.

Phil
Santa Fe, NM

Much of the new music is pretty much garbage anyway, no matter how good the production. I can’t believe that I actually miss the 90s…

“The masses don’t know what they want until it is given to them”

they probobly want the most for their money.

highly portable music i can listen to on the bus and tap my finger to at .99 a song..swell

-or-

great i have some spare time to veg in my room listening to Weinerschnitzel’s ‘Gotterdamerung’ on my VoxMagnifico monitors i bought off of ebay. ahh..the nuance.

Here is the solution: with memory getting cheaper at an exponential rate, there is no reason to skimp on the amount of information contained in audio files. So we should try to create audio-files that are worthy of being played on the very best equipment, containing every scrap of detail that anyone will ever be able to appreciate. However: it is helpful for sound to be compressed when people are listening to music while driving, in bars, etc. So what we need is are audio-players which know how to compress those wonderful audio-files all by themselves when necessary.

I’ve been reading through all of the comments here, and it’s amazing how much confusion still exists. As far as I can see, the technical specs of LPs, CDs, mp3s, et cetera (and many other concerns raised), have nothing to do with sound engineers deliberately distorting the music to make it appeal to some minority who don’t care about sound quality, just loudness.

As a music fan of 44 years standing, I’ve been pro-CD since they first appeared on the scene in 1983. Recently, though, I’ve been working with a well-known blues musician, assembling a compilation of his roots from existing LPs and CDS, preparing demo recordings to send to his arranger, and other audio tasks. By pointing out the deficiencies of recent CD sound, he’s made me very critical of what’s been happening in the industry over the last couple of years.

In a previous note, I mentioned my unhappiness with “re-mastered” titles. Some seem to have interpreted this as a critique of re-mastering itself, but there are plenty of good examples of restoration work (Bob Irwin, Steve Hoffman, Dennis Drake…). What I’m saying is that nothing I’ve heard lately is listenable (notable examples: Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels” and any of the latest Cream and Allman Brothers discs). Worst of all are the “mini-LP sleeve” series coming from Japan, which sound like they were done by a 14-year who had just been given his first graphic equalizer (”gee, it sounds really cool if I push everything up to the max!”).

I’ve tried experimenting with expanders to see if some of the original sound can be recovered, but it never works. I’m probably just not experienced enough to pull this trick off, but still the failure makes me suspect that there’s more being done to degrade the sound than just dynamic compression.

And for those who continue to suggest that listeners just “turn it down”, what seems to happen is this: a slight volume decrease results in going quickly from too loud to too soft, with no sweet spot in between. Listening to that “Car Wheels” remaster, I found myself constantly changing the volume to try to find a comfortable setting that was “just right”. It couldn’t be done.

One final thought, for all the folks who don’t care whether or not they’re experiencing the true sound of recordings, as long as they can get the general idea on their cheap iPods or car stereos. What you’re doing is not very different from watching a contemporary movie with the color turned off. You get the details of the story okay, but you’re missing an entire dimension of the artistry and the best of the sensual experience of music. Today’s degraded CD sound is, in effect, approaching black and white teevee viewing.

A little background: I’m a small-time recording artist who makes music because it makes me happy. I have tens of fans in fives of countries. I’ve sold out the living room on numerous occasions (free admission).

So:
So I don’t have the money or influence to do top-end recordings. I listen to what engineers say, take it into account, assemble the best bargain bits (software, compressor/exciter, tube preamps, noise reducer, microphones, etc.) I can from eBay and Craigslist, then do what’s REALLY important: capturing emotion, feeling, aurora, and motion in sound. Sometimes, I have the patience to fiddle with my dimestore equipment enough to get a truly remarkable high-quality recording. Sometimes, I set things up where they should be “OK”, then let it rip.

So, when I submit recordings to people for review, the first comment tends to be that the recording isn’t blast-compressed for instant recognition on 1/2″ speakers in a digital device. The second comment is usually that the music isn’t recorded to “industry standards” (read:loud, sparkly, flatly dynamic).

I’m glad I don’t have a suit telling me that I have to ruin my recordings with over-processed tools. I’m proud of my music. My recordings are expressions of my soul, not commercial receptacles for the boardroowm.

There are some truly wizard engineers, technicians, and artists out there (you gals and guys ROCK). They do stuff that is nothing less than magic. The tools aren’t responsible for mangling music. Most of the time, the engineers, techs, and artists aren’t responsible for mangling the recordings. It isn’t about blame - it’s about (music industry culture) cultural ignorance to sublety, nuance, emotion, and light-of-soul.

Yes, “The Red Rock Hills” is a quiet recording. No, “The Red Rock Hills” not going to make it on pop radio. No, I don’t mind that it’s made me only $21 in the past three years. Yes, lots of real care went into the recording. Give it a listen from uncompressed source like the original CD… you can hear me breathe. You can even hear the tears. And John Boy & Billy will never know the difference.

Jimmy

Regarding the way music sounds on video game soundtracks:

Guitar Hero III sounds pretty horrible in my opinion, but Rock Band actually sounds BETTER than some of the original recordings by the bands on there. I’ll use the Queens of the Stone Age song “Go With the Flow” for an example. On the CD, if you look at the soundwave pattern it is just one huge block of noise; however, if you rip the track from the Rockband game and check out the soundwave pattern you can actually see the peaks and dips. It sounds a hell of a lot more impactful as well. Sure, it may sound quieter after you listen to the CD version, but you know what rectifies and enhances that? The volume knob being turned up by, and this is key, the LISTENER and not the people responsible for the compression.

The assumption that you have to spend $15000 to be able to tell the differences between the music and to discern the tiny nuances is a fallacy. Personally I’ve spent around maybe $500 or $600 on upgrading the system in my car and one can definitely tell the difference. If people can afford to waste $500 to $400 on an iPhone or around $200 for a various shitty version of an iPod, there is no reason money can’t be saved for a moderately decent stereo.

Also, just because YOU yourself can’t discern the difference between MP3 audio and CD quality audio doesn’t mean, that those who can should have to suffer and put up with your bullshit.

I’m just a regular dude, music lover for my whole life and I don’t see what the big deal is. While I definitely think that over-compressed (sonically, not digitally) music results in a muddy, undifferentiated mess (See: Californication), i don’t think that MP3/AAC is that big of a problem. For one thing, most people don’t have (can’t afford) the equipment to resolve every nuance of the music. Secondly, most people can’t even physically hear every nuance of the music. I myself try to get the best equipment I can afford (I use Axiom Audio speakers and Grado 325 headphones) but I honestly cannot tell the difference between CD audio and 128 AAC. For most people, the convenience of MP3/AAC far outweighs the slight, dubious increase in sound quality. People aren’t willing to shell out $15000+ for an audio system just to get a better sense of “spaciousness” in music. Granted, I’m no audiophile, but neither is 90% of the music-buying public.

I get plenty of detail, soundstage and clarity for my taste (and just about everyone who has heard my system) while having the convenience of my entire music collection in AAC/MP3 format at the click of a remote in my AppleTV. Now that is advanced technology!

a lot of the complaints are due to the mp3 player or the headphones… My problem with some bands, like tool’s 10000 days, is the sound card, because when it tries to make everything sound like surround-sound, it brings out stuff you shouldn’t hear as loud, like the samples used in vicarious, 10000 days, wings for marie etc.

omfg, arguing about the compression of the files is pointless… any song with a quality above 192kb/s is a waste of space without the proper headphones to hear the difference, I mean, I spend 150$ on my headphones and sound card so I could buy cds and hear the difference between 192 and 320, and with another 50$, I’m able to hear the subtle differences between 320 and 1.4 mb/s which is the actual compression of the songs on the album. converting songs to smaller sizes cuts off sounds THAT NORMALLY AREN’T HEARD WITH REGULAR HEADPHONES. I admit, 128 kb/s is pretty crappy, but that’s only because the range cut off starts to bite at the audible range of songs that you would hear, in say, the earbuds that come with an iPod. I agree with carlos, if its too loud, turn it down, and if you don’t like the way the album was mastered, don’t support the band. if the band has some spending money, they can always master it themselves so that this doesn’t happen.

“Decibel creep” is the term for this. Paul M. called it that years ago. “The Stones would listen to our record and go a little louder. Then we’d listen to theirs, and go a bit louder. And so on. Decibel creep.” GL, SFSU

I have an MP3 player, and listen mostly to classical music. But not really on the player as you get no sense of space or anything like thwe true range of the music. When a flute sounds as loud as a full orchestra, something is wrong.

Reading through the comments, it seems there are ways to fight it. Take something from the movie industry and release a(n) “Artist’s/Producer’s Cut” with the subcaption, “The way the artist intended their music to be heard”… The compression wars (which I hate calling the loudness wars because people who don’t understand it just say to turn the volume down) have been going on a long time and with cheaper digital distribution, and weakened labels, it is the time to convince people that the goal should be naturalism in sound engineering…

I’ve been an audio signal processing engineer for some years now and have designed a few dynamic range compression algorithms in the past. I have also been a mastering engineer in the past. The problem of loudness has gotten out of hand to say the least. I should just say this in agreement with some other posts up here; loudness issues relating to dynamic compression have absolutely nothing got to do with bitrate compression. They both contribute to the degradation of audio quality and it is the case that highly dynamically compressed audio content will not respond well to bitrate compression but the two issues really need to be dealt with separately. Dynamic compression in the context of audio reproduction was originally developed in order to help radio stations to broadcast with more average power without over modulating. Over modulation results in a radio station exceeding its permitted band width causing interference with nearby stations on the dial. In an effort to have the highest broadcast range and be loudest station on the dial, stations began to supply more power to their transmitters causing over modulation. At this stage, the FCC stepped in and began to impose hefty fines for over modulation. Being louder and having greater range means more money from advertisers so stations needed to find a way of being louder without over modulating. Compression had been in use in military comunication and was soon adopted in broadcast audio as early as the late 40’s. Compression allowed the radio stations to have both a longer broadcast range as well as being louder on the dial without over modulating. This is where the problem started and this is ultimately when the loudness war began. Limiters effectively gave broadcasters the ability to “apparently” increase the loudness of audio content without exceeding the peak limits which would casue over modulation. The race had now begun…who can be loudest without compromising audio quality? They just kept turning it up! It’s been getting louder ever since. Compressors and limiters are now used in almost every link in the recording and broadcast chain.
When used correctly dynamic range compression is almost indispensable in recording so what is the solution?
The one thing that we must keep in mind is that limiters and compressors are not autonomous (although ironically some now are!)…normally somebody sets the parameters or decides to use ‘auto’ compression, so ultimately the engineers who misuse compression and limiting are to blame, not compressors, not Pro Tools, not Waves L2. Although, what do you say to a client who demands a super loud master? Or the record exec. who demands the loudest track possible? So in some cases even the engineers are not to blame!

This is well covered ground in Audio Engineering and I’m happy to see RS covering it for the music loving masses too.
It is unfortunate that it has come to this but some standardistion is occuring in the broadcast industry on loudness of audio content. ITU BS-1770 deals with loudness standardisation which is probably what we need at this stage but may also compromise artisitic integrity if it extends into the recording industry. Ultimately, education is the way forward and I think that we may just see a new breed of ‘loudness aware’ engineers if the issue continues to get as much coverage as possible.

Dan
www.audioresearchgrou p.com

I’m just an average listener … so take this as a consumer reaction. That comment “God is in the details” really hit me. After many years of loving all kinds of music, especially rock and pop, I find myself retreating to classical music as the one place where a full range of volume, tempo, and tonal quality is still used to convey the emotional qualities of the music.

As a mastering engineer, I can tell you that this article is trying to make a point but is kind of all over the place.

1) the loudness wars started long before the advent of mp3. Mp3 may have accelerated things, but it’s not the origin of the problem. Mp3 quality may be reduced, but remember how popular the cassette was back in the 80’s? That was even worse. Laying the loudness wars and the decline in audio quality at the foot of mp3’s is a bit disingenuous.

2) Compression is not, strictly speaking, the enemy. Recording engineers have been using compressors as effects for decades. They’re used live, they’re used in the studio, and sometimes even overcompression and sidechaining is used as an effect. It’s pretty much de-riguer in the recording process, and not for some trumped-up loudness reason - it’s just useful to make a good-sounding recording.

3) Pro Tools is not the culprit. The author writes about it as though the use of Pro Tools is responsible for all of music’s ills. It’s analogus to blaming the problem on the mixing board. First, PT (or any other DAW) are complicated pieces of software and hardware - they’re not “as easy as using a word processor.” Similarly, they’re not magic - Autotune and Beat Detective can make corrections but they’re never going to make an amateur sound professional. Garbage in, garbage out (Butch Vig notwithstanding). You can make screwy overcompressed masters with entirely analog signal paths as well, if you’re so inclined.

4) Remastering is not by default a horrible process. In most cases it’s just cleaning up of a recording that was made on older gear. Heck, *Mastering* isn’t either. Yes, you can make things louder and you can compress/limit things. That’s part of what mastering is - adding a final layer of “smudge” (as one person called it) is one tactic that helps a recording hold together on the myriad systems it’s likley to be played on, and preps it level-wise for its target medium (CD, vinyl, tape, film, TV, etc). While some recordings can sound acceptable in an unmastered state, most really don’t. I mean, your speakers are different than your neighbors’, and it’s the job of the Mastering Engineer to do what they can to make sure the album sounds similar - and decent - on both of them.

5) Overlimiting is a very real problem, but it’s not new. Each generation of technology has produced new mastering tools which allow the engineer to push the envelope just a bit further. Probably the only reason things weren’t compressed beyond recognition 20 years ago was because the technology wasn’t there to do it yet.

6) Don’t automatically blame the mastering engineer. Most of us hate hate HATE being asked to make it as loud as possible, partially because it takes all the subtlety out of our craft, and partially because it’s really not good for our ears, which are our stock-in-trade.

Similarly, the tools are cheap these days, so anyone with half a mind to can compress/limit the holy hell out of their track.

I dunno, this article overall leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I see what the author is getting at but it seems a little hysterical.

Remember this:
http://www.sitezero.com. au/files/brazil_zavier_cugat.m p3
has been through TWO generations of vinyl.The original being recorded in 1941, the second generation in the early 80’s. There are other recording from 1938 that are almost as good.As stated before, vinyl could easily go to 90 db dynamic range, though the effect was almost absurd and was mainly confined to test records to demonstrate how it sounded)
We’re getting off topic here, as I have no problems with the capabilities of CD, just the commercial pressure forcing bad sound, ironically in an effort to sell it.

Glad to see some discussion on this. The article helped (partially) explain why so much new music sounds the same and sounds so bad. A couple of comments to add:

1. Now that I have kids I find that CDs and DVDs have an additional problem (with respect to cassettes-audio and VHS) they get scratched and dirtied easily.

2. Occasionally, after hours and hours of digital media, I will listen to an old cassette or watch a movie on VHS and have been surprised, even shocked, at what good sound and even image quality a tape has.

3. For me digital is convenient and crisp, but it makes no improvement over analogue in sound(or even image) quality. I’m happy that we have not abandoned analogue media and machines and we must keep it that way!

A little history: The physical limitations of carving a sound print into a piece of wax (to be later transferred to vinyl) creates it’s own kind of compression. Sound engineers have to deal with this limitation by creating equalization schemes. For instance; loud bass passages, if not suppressed, would create a track in the wax so large it would destroy adjacent tracks! In the early days each recording company would use it’s own equalization formula to record a disk, and of course when played back a little tweaking of the bass and treble knob was required to restore the original sound. In the fifties a standard equalization formula was established by the RIAA which could be built into the ‘phono input’ of the consumers amplifier.
A digital recording doesn’t have the same physical limitations a needle in wax has. A small audio signal of whatever frequency can be assigned a small number, a large signal can be assigned a large number. The computer has no trouble recording the numbers and playing them back at the desired bit rate and sampling frequency. Your amplifier and speakers my have trouble reproducing the sound but there are no limitations to the computer.
Personally, when I first started buying CDs. I was both amazed and annoyed by the dynamic range. A CD with a wide dynamic range was thrilling, but it had to be listened to with great attention. If there was any ambient noise I’d have to turn the volume up to hear the soft passages and then the loud passages would really blast.
One last thing: Joe Levy did a comparison of vinyl, CD, and MP3 formats. But he didn’t make the most important comparison; he didn’t compare live musicians to recordings of the same musicians! At one point Joe says “The CD sounded good, though I was convinced the bass was warmer on the vinyl.” I don’t care if the bass was warm as Texas in August or cold as Alaska in February, I just want it to sound as close to the original as possible.

Wow, sure are a lot of people here unclear on the difference between digital file compression and dynamic range compression.

Digital file compression shrinks the size of a digital file for easier transmission over a network. This process is hopefully non-destructive.

Dynamic range compression is an audio Special Effect, like an echo box or distortion. There are digital and analog versions of these devices. They need not be used destructively, but, like any effect, they can be wearyingly overused.

The over-compressed effect that everyone in the article is complaining about is not readily audible to everyone. It helps to hear comparisons, so check it out.

Are people really still arguing that vinyl LPs sound better than CDs? Oh, that’s right, this is Rolling Stone magazine we’re dealing with here.

I’ve got a question or two. What about remastered CD’s? Is this better or worse than the originals? Do compilations and bonus discs have the same attention to sound quality as they do the selections on them. Rhino comes to mind - I’ve always liked it when they get ahold of a favorite artist but are they doing the recordings justice?
What about the Creative Xmod enhancer?

For a breath of fresh air amongst this mess - listen to Herbie Hancock’s “River - the joni letters”. Beautiful playing - captured by a wonderful job of engineering & mastering.
This is the way music should be done!!

I’ve been making records professionally for 30 years and listening to music for 51 years. I wear alotta hats in the industry, so I propose a schism, yeah, a revolt of sorts, and I put out a challenge to artists. All my analog friends, you know, people who still record on 2″ analog tape and then mix onto 1/2″ analog tape and then master to SACD, Oh shit!! whadd I say, yes……..

All those people have their work converted to a digital realm.

So here’ the challenge:

release two levels of products for two demographics-

-[1]- iPod happy !! i don’t care if they’re mp3, mp4, FLAC or whuudddeveuh you want, just as long as they download quickly so I can be on with my ADD lifestyle!

-[2]- Audiophile Acceptable…….

Why not release music at the same sampling depth and bit rate that it was originally recorded?? File size !! File size you say, hell I have 2 G of storage hangin’ off of my keychain. People who want great sound will pay for it and will wait for the download or wait for a “hi-def” copy to arrive via snail mail.

Leave the “crush”- [Multiband strangulation of the details] out and let people hear the music. How SACD didn’t get included in the BluRay spec is criminal and unfortunately supports the erroneous premise that no one gives a shit about sound.

And a sidebar to all the CES vendors:

[1]-An iPod that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files, a cell phone that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files………
[2]-A hardware playback engine that supports 24 bit /192 kHz files Or LARGER………….and interfaces to an analog pre-amp/power amp combo.

II’ve been making records professionally for 30 years and listening to music for 51 years. I wear alotta hats in the industry, so I propose a schism, yeah, a revolt of sorts, and I put out a challenge to artists. All my analog friends, you know, people who still record on 2″ analog tape and then mix onto 1/2″ analog tape and then master to SACD, Oh shit!! whadd I say, yes……..

All those people have their work converted to a digital realm.

So here’ the challenge:

release two levels of products for two demographics-

-[1]- iPod happy !! i don’t care if they’re mp3, mp4, FLAC or whuudddeveuh you want, just as long as they download quickly so I can be on with my ADD lifestyle!

-[2]- Audiophile Acceptable…….

Why not release music at the same sampling depth and bit rate that it was originally recorded?? File size !! File size you say, hell I have 2 G of storage hangin’ off of my keychain. People who want great sound will pay for it and will wait for the download or wait for a “hi-def” copy to arrive via snail mail.

Leave the “crush”- [Multiband strangulation of the details] out and let people hear the music. How SACD didn’t get included in the BluRay spec is criminal and unfortunately supports the erroneous premise that no one gives a shit about sound.

And a sidebar to all the CES vendors:

[1]-An iPod that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files, a cell phone that plays 24 bit /192 kHz files………
[2]-A hardware playback engine that supports 24 bit /192 kHz files Or LARGER………….and interfaces to an analog pre-amp/power amp combo.

Maybe users of such “Audiophile” gear [my apologies to all you tri-amped, Mogami only, Conrad Johnson Monoblockheads….] can lead by example and show the world what it has been missing.

Oh yeah,

live music rules !!!!!!

At 46 I’ve experienced the transition from analog to digital music reproduction. I remember when the big selling point for cd’s was the supposed pristine sound. No doubt, cd’s do sound crisper, but there’s no guts to the sound. Mp3’s are much worse, obviously. Overall, I think the music industry got what it deserved when everybody used the digital format to get their music for free. They killed the quality of the sound for more profit and it came back to bite them beyond belief. They should’ve seen it coming.

These days I listen to mp3s almost exclusively. My listening habits are driven by music that I like, and that sounds great - with or without too much compression. Really great digital recordings do stand out - Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine” and “100th Window” come to mind for great depth and dynamics.

When I used to listen to vinyl, the sound quality of pop music was equally hit and miss. Many records were flat and some were brilliant.

What I’m coming to is that in the pop music market, a large majority of listeners just don’t care much about sound quality. This is easily evidenced by all those mp3s one finds that aren’t tagged, that have glitches, and that are at 128kbps or even less.

But without much digging, a modern-day audiophile can still find gold, particularly by looking outside pop music. A recent discovery for me, The Uri Caine Ensemble won’t be in the top 40, but certainly will thrill your ears if you let them.

Well…..thanks man
ya this is good stuff to know.
i was happy at 192kbs, so now i gotta go back and rip my CDs at 320kbs.

Great article. I am a mastering engineer with moderate successes. I have two teenagers who mainly listen to brutally limited MP3 pop, and I wonder how to teach successive generations of musicians and music consumers about good sound. Thankfully many of my clients are jazz, folk and classical pros, and not all that interested in “as loud as possible” - they understand and can hear the sacrifices. However, I echo Bernie Grundmann in that I HAVE had clients come back and say “it sounds great, can you make it louder?” Arrrgh! I don’t completely agree with Butch Vig’s comment that there’s no turning back (although that may be true in rock and pop). My recommendations for keeping your sanity and educating young people about sound and music: Keep attending live music performance, and keep acoustic and unamplified live music part of your diet.

You can still have recordings with subtlety and nice wide dynamics done in MP3 format. The format’s not the issue, it’s the mastering done with high compression to make it sound louder that is the problem. It’s sucking all the life out of these recordings, and nowdays it’s hard to find one that hasn’t been so affected.

In the past ten years, I’d say the largest part of the problem has stemmed from piracy.

In my mind, the advent of mp3s allowed for incredibly small files sizes which were readily transferable over the internet (ah, 1997, anyone else remember 56k modems?). Of course, only a complete idiot would pay for something he could get for free, and so now even the staunchest advocates of paying-for-music have turned to piracy.
Unfortunately, even with the increases in the internet backbone (I know we’re at least up to a 10GB ps backbone throughout most of the US), we’re still using these compressed digital files. Gathered, I think 320 kbps mp3s do sound pretty good, but we still don’t have enough hard-drive space / bandwidth to be downloading whole albums in wave form. It’s just not economical.
So, since mp3s are still what’s used for ripping / piracy, it only makes sense that digital music players only support mp3s (and don’t ipods further compress the mp3s anyways?).
My point is that as long as piracy is king and we all don’t have 100GBps connections, I don’t think *.wav and other lossless files are going to see much action. Furthermore, with people using those in-ear headphones or laptop speakers, there’s no point in higher fidelity. *Though I do have the Bose in-ear headphones, and they’ve got incredible bass for their size*

Then there’s the whole radio issue where it’s far easier to hear higher frequencies / louder volumes when you’re driving or in an area with lots of background noise.

We could also argue that the high fidelity problem could be related to commercialization, globalization, and the problems of maintaining integrity and individuality while still competing in the modern world, as those things MAY contribute to songwriting of a poorer caliber than seen in the past, resulting in more production necessary to cover up the shit beneath it. In other words, low fidelity works the same magic for terrible musicians / songwriting as make-up does for ugly girls.

I am glad that RS put forth an article which articulates so well the current state of music production. Secondly, as I recall - the industry dreaded the adoption of MP3 as a music delivery medium (for obvious reason). Although I believe that audio quality has suffered, it is only so in the short term. Eventually, all the novelty of digitally cataloging one’s music collection will fade. Eventually, the demand for HI Fideltiy will come back and when it does, it will be bigger than ever.

Everybody craves that which they do not have. Everybody will have a hard drive full of music. Nobody will have a system that can make them feel as though they are in the studio with the artists. Everybody will thirst for sonic clarity.

Damn, it just moves the typo. Obviously breaks up links.

Although I do like the sound of vinyl, I don’t think we need to give up on CDs yet. The big problem, as this article indicates, is that CDs are deliberately being made to sound as bad as possible — a devious plot to make people dissatisfied and demand a new format, or just plain ignorance?

I’ve vowed to never again buy a “remastered” version of a favorite CD, because the last twenty or so have sounded so much worse than the previous edition. Compression, lack of detail and space, glassiness… I don’t know what it is, but most CDs sound like poor, low-bit-rate mp3s these days. They hurt my ears and make we want to turn them off mere minutes into the disc.

And, no, turning the master volume down does not help at all, as anyone with functioning ears will recognize.

Hard Rockin old fart
Good link, but I think there was a typo.

http://spectrum.ieee.or g/aug07/5429
The most disturbing conclusion is that the loudness war has stymied the development of the next generation of audio delivery.
I reiterate though there are still good artists releasing good music (correcting my own typo from before).However it’s my experience that younger people are not as passionate about their music as we were.People put it down to competition from video games and the “Net” etc, but compressing the life out of anything good can’t help.
In my dealings with record companies, ther were too many only concerned with “moving units” who had no concern for the artistry involved. Part of that artistry is the audio engineer, who should be allowed to do THEIR job.

Here Hear! I have been dragged into the digital world kicking and screaming. Always having to compete with the volume of records that are squashed to bring the volume up and compromising the audio quality. Sadly the analog days are about over with the cost and availability of tape. Glad to hear there are growing numbers of people that want the warm kickass sound of analog back. Let’s get back to making real music again and dump those &#%@’ing plugins that most people use for crutches. If you can’t play it in time or sing it in tune get another job.

Here is a link to a ‘techie’ site with a good article on how Big Music has trashed our sound quality…
http://spectrum.iee e.org/aug07/5429

Multimedia version (not so good) http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug07 /5480

Hey all you full of hot air pretentious pricks, shut the fuck up and ROCK THE EQUALIZERS!!! thank you.

“Reels for feel, bits for beats.”

After toppling Alicia Keys’ “No One” from the top spot last week, Flo Rida’s “Low” remains No. 1 this week on the Billboard Hot 100. The track’s 470,000 digital sales sets a single-week record, easily trumping the former title-holder, Fergie’s “Fergalicious” at 294,000.

Digital limiting and analog compression are used for the same purposes- to improve loudness and hopefully clarity.

Analog program compression was invented to keep telephone analog voice levels within a usable zone as analog voices traversed the planet via copper wire. Digital clipping was invented to rock my body!!!! The algorithms used in modern plugins (Waves L1, L2, L3, etc.) are designed to increase “punch.” Mastering labs get paid many $$$ to increase punch, so if a 15 yearold figures out how to do it at home, it becomes a part of the music- like a Marshall stack.

Dynamics in a 3 minute pop record can kill careers.

The records most regarded by American audiophiles used a combination of track compression/limiting, tape saturation, and stereo bus compression- mostly for technical reasons. Once the greats applied it for style (Gordy, Spector, Tubby, etc.) their records flew off the shelves.

Distortion- whether harmonic, inharmonic, accidental, intentional, analog or digital-
is a key ingredient in the success of American records over the last 50 years.

The soft, soapy sound of UK pop should never break thru Top 40, but is cool for Lite FM.

Comparing soft rockers to happy thrashers and crunkness is futile, but I encourage you to cop a Lil’ Jon album to experience the true marriage of classic analog and modern digital techniques.

Let’s stop complaining and hit the clubs and arenas again. Support labels that share your tastes, but don’t stop the digital revolution.

Shanachie puts out great music that won’t tear out your ear drums.

One Love,
Steve

Tony: nice name drop on the Beach Boys album Holland. incredible record. i’ll try and one up you “high fidelity style” (like the movie) - if you haven’t already, listen to Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue. quite possibly the most incredible album I’ve ever heard. the first track River Song is a real jaw dropper!

peace,
Robby

Rolling Stone, it’s funny. Just when I can’t think you get any worse, you go ahead and throw in a relevant article and make me hate you even more for giving out valuable information to your retarded readers. Oh, woe is me.

i keep reading posters blabbering on that their image of vinyl is clicking, popping, veiled, not clear as CD, muffled, etc.

well, I’m sorry that you were listening to worn out records on a shitty turntable with a shitty cartridge that wasn’t set up correctly. you are really depriving yourselves if you haven’t heard a properly set up analog rig playing some decent material (i.e. - not thrashed).

I’m not talking mega-buck rigs - just a good turntable. done, right, it CREAMS digital. be it CD or FLAC, etc.

here’s some pointers. if you hear clicks and pops - try a Hunt-EDA brush and clean the record. if it still pops, clean the record in a nitty gritty or VPI discwasher. some record stores have them and will clean a record for you (at a cost). or used vinyl is so cheap - chuck it and and buy a better copy.

how to look for good vinyl. obviously, look at it against the light and look for scratches. also, make sure the surface is like a black mirror. if it has a “rainbow hue” or is sorta of a milky looking, it’s probably been trashed by the elements or a worn stylus. lastly, check the spindle hole. if it looks virgin, then the record hasn’t been played much. if it has lots of small tears - then it’s been well loved.

next - do the vocals and high frequencies have distortion in them? THAT’S NOT NORMAL! might be an abused record BUT let’s make sure your turntable is set up correctly.

i use a modded Technics SL-1600MK2 (basically a suspended SL-1200). it’s easy as cake to dial in. first go to vinylengine.com and download the Kearns Universal Arc protractor. this will aid you in setting up your cartridge overhang correctly.

next up, set your vertical tracking force (VTF) to manufacture’s specifications. you can tweak it later. zero out the arm (so it just floats) then, add the appropriate weight.

next up, if vocals and high frequencies sound distorted, lower the vertical tracking angle (VTA) to the point the sibilance disappears. this is done on my technics with the adjustable rotating collar. this basically raises and lowers the height of the tone arm.

does music sound muffled with a lot of boomy bass? well, then raise the VTA as high as you can without introducing distortion into the vocals and high frequencies.

go the vinylengine.com or audioasylum.com to learn more!

great starter turntable? same as it’s always been. the venerable Technics SL-1200MK2-MK5. great starter cartridge? why try the audio technica AT-440MLa and you all set!

see ya,
Robby

Unfortunately, vinyl is heavy and takes more space on the retailers shelves than CD’s do. As a result, they don’t like stocking records as much.

I prefer to expand my music collection by purchasing secondhand vinyl. I often find a great selection of older records at thrift shops, yard sales and flea markets, and they usually sell for $0.25 - $0.50. I can purchase a whole lot of great sounding music for the same $17.99 that the major labels charge for a CD full of the crap they have been trying to sell us for years.
I let others know of my interest in vinyl and have, on several occasions, had people give me their old record collections. There’s nothing as nice as free music!

time re-popularize the vinyl record. no pirating, cheap to manufacture, cheaper to buy at the stores, album art work is bigger and interesting, better sound quality.

All the problems of the indusrty solved.

Music is not about hearing. It is about listening!

This is one of the few music related articles that RS has done recently that’s very worthwhile (compared to the frontpage Britney shit). Good comment, whoever mentioned they should have made the difference between analogue and digital compression. They are used for entirely different purposes. Also, since when were we suppose remenisce about the sound quality of CD? Last time I checked it lacked the dynamic range of records, despite being “newer” technology. SACD and DVD-A and the discs that use the violet (”blue”) lasers are the best solution. And to the person talking about the Volume knob…there is a big difference in what you are talking about and what the article was referring to. The listener has no control over the ear fatigue they are talking about. Dynamic range inherit in a recording should be preserved as much as possible, and making it all loud does nothing but steal power from the music, just as the article says.

Quote;”knows that the albums he makes are often played through tiny computer speakers by fans who are busy surfing the Internet.”
What a deceptively simple way to get people into and to stay in the stereo sound field. It beats having the left speaker behind a corner of the couch and the right speaker as a plant stand.
digatelier.com

Dave,
There is still music being produced and released. Also in many cases there is usually a version of the recording that has quite decent dynamics, before it’s flattened for FM radio and IPods. That’s the version we’re after. A good start would be to release as an option on Itunes at 256 VBR MP3. It would even garner some other mainstream press.
Also Gereon, I pretty much followed your path, but I care now about quality as well as diversity. I’m currently a fan of Arcade Fire, The Grates and The Dresden Dolls (I told you my tastes were a bit indy)
but I’d like Arcade Fire a bit more if their CD’s had a bit more life. The other 2 aren’t too bad.
To hopefully answer a couple of points raised here, I’ve thrown up a copy of Brazil by Zavier Cugat. This recording is from 1941,even before magnetic tape was used. It was recorded direct to’78, much later played on someting VERY good and recorded to DAT in the late 80’s and released on a box set called “Popular Music of the 1940’s”.
I’ve played that at 33 on a Luxman turntable through an Audigy 2 soundcard and compressed the WAV file to VBR MP3 at 192 Kb.It almost still sounds like it could be a modern recording (exept ironically in the context of this debate, it still has some dynamics left)
You can have a listen at:
http://www.sitezero.com.au /files/brazil_zavier_cugat.mp3

Come on RS fans- remember when mama used to say “turn it down!!” and you turned it up???? How quicly we forget!!

While I do understand the problems faced by RS readers and 70’s types, the fact is that, ever since the introduction of Kraftwerk to U.S. shores, the old guard has shitted on electronic music styles, content, and processes, while the labels/movie studios/video channels/magazine ad departments laugh all the way to the bank.

I am a fan of 60’s Blue Note, 70’s Buddah, 80’s Def Jam, 90’s Loud, and 00’s Myspace, and what I hear going on today is the acoustic/electric crowd trying to catch up to the sonic innovations introduced by the geniuses of digital music production. Some win, some lose.

The average Top 40 station today will play a Beyonce record next to a Kid Rock record, and FM processors (mainly by Orban and Cutting Edge) will work against the best efforts made by the brightest engineers and producers of either genre. But knowledge is half the battle, and the rock crowd must get down or lay down.

As file compression algorithms and production techniques continue to evolve, I hope that the next Rick Rubin-financed hip-hop record can find a home in Starbucks next to Nora Jones and Frank Sinatra without taking a retro-trip to the tape days a la Johnny Cash.

Keep the negativity coming music fans!!

If revisionists continue their rain dance to destroy “the box,” this will free the younger artists from the 6-album deal that goes nowhere, and the next 50 Cent-type $8-per-album royalty artist will sit at home emailing songs to the world and self-booking shows while the aging rocker begs the union for adequate health care.

If corporate politics suddenly shift back to a point where old folks can dictate to young folks what to do with their computers, drum machines, guitars and microphones again, the youth will revolt and make even more disgustingly loud and personal music.

Chuck D for Def Jam president!!!

yeah, they do tend to sound like greased ketchup. but dylans studio albums sound like it too, on CD rom, and the rolling stones sond even worse.

The most important thing is the song! A great song will last forever!

The singer, band, playback format , record label, record store, jukebox, radio station all come and go.

Some of the greatest hit songs were recorded in less than perfect conditions and the imperfection is what made them so great. Many great songs are from way before recording even existed.

Who cares what it sounds like. Write some good songs. I have’nt heard many lately.

My first recording device as a little kid was a simple cassette recorder which i placed in front of a speaker to record songs on the radio.
I was fine with that.

Then i got a new radio with an audio out option and i recorded using a cale, and i was fine with that.

Later, when I had the money, I was able to buy a stereo and a turntable.
I was very fine with that. especially because i loved to buy all these clicking second hand LP’s which were hard to get new back then.
I loved that.

When the CD came out, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one of those, because i wanted to listen to Pink Floyd and Charly Antolini in a truly mesmerizing audio quality.
A lot of old stuff was remastered back then - jus to get the best out of the medium.
but even if it was just an old Hendrix Bootleg, recorded in Stockholm, i was fine with that.

Today i use itunes and others to take a listening-stroll through music genres I would have never found, if I still had to stand in line at a in a shop, waiting behind 5 rap-kiddies to find their “drug de jour” among 17 CDs, just to listen to stuff I never heard of.

I LOVE THAT.
I care about music, not sound.
Reception is a very personal thing anyway, that’s why there are bass and treble controls on every stereo.

I’m pretty sure that mp3 lacks aoustic quality. But not enough that I would mind.
In terms of experience and musical variety technical progress always gave me more than it took away.

Im really fine with that.

Will bose in-ear headphones help with this problem? i know that the audio files will still be loud but it seems that i can hear each individual instrument clearly.

Also would one of those things that turn records to cds help at all with this problem?

quick point on the article. pressings of new releases come from the same shitty overcompressed master anyway, right? so, comparing vinyl to CD to mp3 using a new release doesn’t really show what vinyl (and CD for that matter) can really do. next time, try a better recording - perhaps a steely Dan LP, CD and then mp3.

now onto my discourse:

the record and audio industry got what it asked for when they killed competent mass-market hi-fi in the late 70’s/early 80’s. basically in my view - good sounding equipment was pretty readily available up until the early 1980’s. especially speakers. anybody could plunk down some minor duckets and grab a pair of very capable large Advent loudspeakers and a decent receiver.

not the best stuff in the world - but it was competent and world’s beyond the i-crap docking stations we see all over the place these days. technology has nothing to do with it. you could make just as small an integrated crap-can audio system back then as you could now. difference back then was that people knew that small all-in-one systems SUCKED!

so, in the industry plight to make music more accessible to the masses, they made these horrid things where sound quality didn’t matter. well, if sound quality doesn’t matter, then neither does the recording quality. mp3’s are fine when they blasting through 4″ “full-range” cones. in fact, better because if the driver is limited to like 150hz-8kHz, you won’t get as much listener fatigue from the low bit rate and compression.

this, in turn, marginalizes the value of the music. if these little crap-can audio systems are not worthy of actually sitting and listening, then people will just have them burping away in the background while people do something else. and now the music is not important either.

so, it’s not wonder people feel entitled to STEAL music for free on the Internet. it’s virtually worthless to them.

i do feel for the employees of record companies and retailers. there’s gonna be lots of lay-offs. the recording artists will do fine. they most likely follow Thom York and Prince’s path. sell their music themselves or give the music away for free at their concerts.

i feel there is something to this. with American’s insatiable appetite for consumerism and debt - people WILL PAY for something they value.

While I agree entirely that the loudness race is deplorable, there are a variety of completely inaccurate, unsupportable technical assertions made in this article around the issues of MP3 and how human hearing works. Many of these are in fact putting the cart before the horse, or attributing purpose to blind evolution.

The truth is this has been coming for the past 23 or 24 years…since the introduction of the CD.
Sound has suffered from it’s introduction. The LP has always sounded better than the CD. As a former audio salesperson, I long fought the battle of better sound, but the sad fact is that the convenience is what matters to most people. The current MP3 file system that can remove 90 % of the source, again 90 % of the source is a travesty. Unless the musicians AND the buying public demand better sound, it will continue to go down hill. I still buy record albums when I can, though most of my purchases are of CD’s. I love it when I find a good dynamic CD, but more often than not, they sound compressed. I’d love to believe the future holds an improvement in audio quality, but I am not holding my breath.

The title is a little misleading. It says that sound is worse, but in reality it’s the music itself what’s worse. IMO, the problem is still, that people with iPods wear tiny little earphones that cannot reproduce the sound well, and all that post processing goes to try to make all the detail of the songs can be heard on those tiny little earphones. That should be an “iPod” feature rather than a “re-mastering” job.

Re: RobZalete | 12/28/2007, 5:44 am EST

Compression ahs been around for more than 50 years, but this is a discussion about digital compression on CD rather than analogue compression. Two completely different things entirely.

Carlos, turn down the volume? The volume switch you mean? This proved you have no idea what you are talking about and probably hadn’t read the article fully nor checked out one of the key links…
http://www.yout ube.c om/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Good comment about the potential for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD for music releases. Both of these support multichannel audio, and have the potential for better-than-CD quality. However, they would inevitably be locked and non-rippable, just like Music DVDs, DVD-Audio or DTS.

While I believe that DSD is slightly superior to PCM in terms of imaging, SACD also has another advantage: Most releases are “hybrid” meaning that they contain a CD layer as well. These will play in any CD player, and are rippable to MP3.

I actually think Sony SCREWED UP by not including SACD capability as part of the Blu-Ray spec, including the PS3. This would have breathed new life into SACD, and given Blu-Ray a bigger carrot to the typical buyer. If you’re in that market, you probably already have the audio equipment.

However, I think it is apparent that the multitude of formats is already to consumers. Too many buzzwords, too many acronyms, too many choices. Everybody claims quality, but few have it.

Quiz: What is “HD Radio”? The answer may surprise you…

to Scared Fan;
“Is the Cream Remaster release of Disraeli Gears not what it was when initially released? I have spent good money on many cds thinking that these were exact conversions from the originals.”

You better start looking for the early Polydor Dennis Drake remasters or for the Gold CDs remastered by Steve Hoffman.
And I see no mention of the lossless FLAC format, wich plays on ipods with rockbox firmware. Geez not everyone listen to horrid MP3s anymore…

This argument has been going on for years. I feel like a lot of it is complaining for the sake of. Sure, I think that a lot of current music is crap, but it has more to do with the songwriting than anything else. Give me some overcompressed Nirvana over highly dynamic Fall Out Boy any day. The autocorrect and editing tricks are the real concern, but I guess not as much as old school musicians would like you to believe. And the comment on Californication not having dynamics? It wouldn’t have dynamics regardless of whether or not it was overcompressed. The song has no dynamics anyways, the chorus is naturally no louder than the verse.

There is a simple solution to all of this. Don’t buy crap. Put your money in your pocket and don’t spend it on what you don’t think is value. If you mess up and buy something that is inferior, take it back. In 30 years of listening I have accumulated plenty to listen to and I won’t buy new music just because it is new. And I will return discs that are poor quality. I will write letters and e-mails to the music companys and tell them why. Some of the labels are starting to respond to the market for better quality sound. As for the high cost of equipment I can afford things now that I could never touch before because I can buy used top quality stuff for reasonable prices on the net.

I am not all about letting the “free markets” decide everything, but I have learned to make them work for me. If folks would stick together and not cave too easily we could persuade the music biz to listen. They cater to the MP3 market because it makes them money. I use MP3 on my Bike tours. But they will also cater to the high end if they have to do it to get our money! I think most American consumers have given up their personal power without even realizing that they had it to begin with.

Well I listen to The Arctic Monkeys, and Lily Allen and being a teen I also have a ipod but my ears do know that the sound is way to loud in the wrong places. Were as when I listen to my Dad’s old Vinyl Beatle Albums it is so much easier on my ears!! but can we please can we pick on some one who has no talent I mean Alex Turner is a AMAZING song writer!!!!!!! and he can sing live!!

Too bad about them arctic monkeys.

The loudness wars will end with the hearing aid companies declared the winners.I will continue to listen to my obsolete vinyl in CD-4

I guess im really obsolete I listen to CD-4 on vinyl,the wars will be over soon with the hearing aid companies declared the winners.

Tired ears comments that ‘’David Bendeth is one of the worse offenders in the loudness wars. His records sound atrocious, he is a huge part of the problem. All of the modern Producers used in this article are part of the problem.'’
Which seems to read as if Tired Ears had tired eyes when he skipped the first paragraph of the text. David makes no excuse for himself, he only does what he is paid to do. He cannot do but what he is asked to do else he not be asked to do anything again.
And to Carlos (12/27), all I can say is you come off as if you’re too to have ever experienced recordings that were not poorly made and have never ever heard someone play an instrument in front of you and will be able to tell the difference between that and made CD of the same performance using the techniques obejected to in the article. The fact that you do not understand the concept of Ear Fatigue is enough said by you on this subject.
Your solution to ear fatigue is to turn down the volume, fine do that. That doesn’t change the properties of the recording. I can’t help it if you do not understand and I am not going to explain it to you since it was very well explained in the article and that did not take.

Contrary to what author Levine says, radio stations don’t compress their signals “for technical reasons”–it’s pure economics, baby: a louder signal covers a wider area, increasing the potential audience size and leading to–you guessed it–more advertising revenue! (If you want to get technical, radio stations LIMIT their signals to avoid illegal overmodulation that could interfere with neighboring stations. Compression is related, but different.)

Over-compression of music is a classic case of the bad driving out the good. THANK YOU for bringing attention to a problem that I’ve been railing against for, oh, only about 30 years now.

For years radio stations have had their own ideas on compression, no one wanted a “flat” sound. In these days of “The Loudness Wars” between radio stations they are “compressing the compressed” for the sake of being loud and ruining great sonic quality in the process.

“DVD-A won’t help you at all if the producers have trashed the hell out of the audio in the studio before the discs were even stamped.”

Very true. I was talking to my wife about this- and basically it meant nothing until I said “most modern recordings are being produced like TV ads”
She instantly understood and understood this was a bad thing, as like most people hates the way TV ads yell at you compared to the program material.
If we can get this concept out to the populace, then it may have som traction, and force producers to alter their ways.
Basically a music album shouldn’t be trated in the same way as something used to sell you soap powder.

David Bendeth is one of the worse offenders in the loudness wars. His records sound atrocious, he is a huge part of the problem. All of the modern Producers used in this article are part of the problem.

DVD-A won’t help you at all if the producers have trashed the hell out of the audio in the studio before the discs were even stamped.

“Honing your craft doesn’t mean that your craft will be worth a shit if it gets in the way of the tail wagging the dog.”

WHAT???

Many of you describe the quality of digital audio as though it sounds as bad as a cassette full of music recorded from an AM radio station using a “built in” microphone!

For the sake of your own philosophical windbagging, you distort digital audio infiniely more than digital technology ever did!

I suppose I hold out a bit of hope for Blu Ray and HD DVD being used for music release (though one of them is going to have to win the format war)
DVD -A was a completely confusing format to the consumer. First off you needed a DVD Audio player to play it. But oddly enough, it also played DVD movies, but it wasn’t a DVD video player.However most of the disks came with a Dolby 2 track version of the audio as well, which meant it would play in DVD video players using those tracks.It’s no wonder people found it too hard. People just want a machine, that when you throw a disk at it, it works as intended. The high Def DVD formats give the record companied that abilty, and a multi media version of an album isn’t a bad thing.There’s plenty of space on there to have the high quality mp3’s for the car and IPod as well.
BTW, I’m one of those that feel MP3’s done at a decent bitrate can sound pretty decent. Sometimes it’s just your level of expectation though. I was listening to FM radio rebroadcast as streaming MP3 at 128 Kbit on decent PC speakers (not my favourite rate)but was amazed how good it sounded, compared to what I was used to.
Selling high qality sound has always been a difficult thing to achieve though. I had my business partner come over one day with a vinyl copy of the Blues Brothers, that he’d picked up in a school fete. I washed it, threw it on a Luxman turntable (designed for wet vinyl,as the platter is waterproof) and handed him a nice set of headphones. I was astounded by his reaction, as he’d never heard anything sound that way before. I probably could have sold him a $20,000 stereo at that point, but that’s not the business I’m in.
Anyway, just my 5 cents worth (as we no longer have 1 and 2 cent coins)

“The BIGGEST problem in many current endeavors is that people”…

“Is that on topic?”

That is quite on topic.

Honing your craft doesn’t mean that your craft will be worth a shit if it gets in the way of the tail wagging the dog.

Music has become one more thing that computers do.

This is why Apple is in the appliance business and they flog compressed copies of pop songs as a sideline to fill those appliances up.

Quality getting fistf***ed in the name of commerce isn’t a new concept, but it certainly wasn’t the defacto standard, until lately.

Anybody else want to watch Wall Street, again and think about how cool Gordon Gwecko is?

Cause the character in that film is precisely the sort of oily sonofabitch that’s deciding what’s good and isn’t and how it should sound and what sort of return they demand for tossing it out on the market floor.

Welcome to the video game America. Strap in, buy a big Mac, crank up the noise and blow stuff up.

The record industry must stop brick-wall limiting albums if it expects me to continue bu