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Re: Loudness wars

woodwright

woodwright

New Member
So as I'm waiting on my first tt to arrive (U-Turn), there have been lot's of revelations. I never knew about the "loudness wars" and the effects on perceived sound quality. EQ and other sound shaping techniques are familiar to me but I never realized that mastering could get so perverse.

The point of this post; is there a way to know the source of a certain vinyl pressing? How can I verify the dynamic range of a record/cd/media file?

I did search previous posts to prevent redundancy so please don't crucify me if this exact question has been covered. Thanks as always.
 
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I know of no way to determine recording quality, and more specifically, the degree to which dynamic range compression has been applied, other than to read reviews of the recording or listen to it yourself.
 
I believe the Command 35 stereo records listed the dynamic range for their recording specifications as part of their process as at the time their attempt was to reproduce the best recordings and film allowed the widest dynamic range of all recording mediums back them. When playing the records from it, the dynamics are wonderful. I wish they recorded the 1812 Overture. If they had and used real canon as Telrac did, the result would have bettered Telrac's fantastic rendition.
 
sqlsavior said:
Not sure how complete or usable this site is, but it has some good info...

http://dr.loudness-war.info

:music:
Click to expand...

So how do I use this info? Am I looking for green across the board? I guess what I'm asking is, If you look at #8 down from the top ( In This Moment), you see a DR 06, DR min 03, and DR max 23. Is this good or bad since the min is horrible, but the max is better than most.
 
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A bit of direction more than "use search" would have been nice, especially given that the OP mentioned he's already tried that. Are you saying that there is indeed a source for obtaining some sort of standardized metrics regarding recording quality?
 
Oblivion321 said:
So how do I use this info? Am I looking for green across the board?
Click to expand...

I tried the site's search feature, at the top of the page, where you enter an artist and title, and it worked. I guess the main thing would be to avoid purchasing the more compressed masterings of the title. Avoid red, and look at the numbers to see how green the greens are.
 
Oblivion321 said:
So how do I use this info? Am I looking for green across the board? I guess what I'm asking is, If you look at #8 down from the top ( In This Moment), you see a DR 06, DR min 03, and DR max 23. Is this good or bad since the min is horrible, but the max is better than most.
Click to expand...

Of course DR isn't the only factor in what sounds "good" to you. But from what I understand DR 8 is a good rough threshold. Most albums today are mastered at roughly DR 5 or 6. This makes the softer/quieter portions of a song more pronounced but limits the louder peaks of sound (the crack of a snare).

In your example, I couldn't say. That is pretty odd. I'm inclined to think that anything lower than DR 5 would sound pretty bad.
 
Brian said:
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I wish they recorded the 1812 Overture. If they had and used real canon as Telrac did
.....
Click to expand...

Mercury Living Presence would set up 3 microphones. Left, center, right, and have the orchestra play the loudest and softest passages. They would then set the levels, start recording, and walk away.

The entire Mercury Living Presence catalog was remastered and reissued on CD, most of these being monitored by Wilma Cozart Fine, wife of the late Robert Fine, the original producer.

The 1812 is on MLP 434360-2, issued in 1995, with real cannons. Available from Amazon at $10.41

http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-F...&qid=1422760047&sr=1-1&keywords=1812+overture
 
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