Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Dynamic Range Day

Apparently it's March 16th.

Turn Me Up!

Thanks for the tip Charles- I posted it to my FB profile.

of course, that will not change anything, because record producers and sound engineers do know very well how to do things...
to make the max amount of money.

another thing: the first cd's i bought in 1984 sold for $25.;
a couple of years later, there were many more cd manufacturing plants around the world, and the prices went down to around $12-15.
now the producers say that sales have gone way down. maybe one of the reasons is the fact that prices have gone up since then.

i refuse to pay $25. for a cd or a dvd/blu-ray.
if they want to increase sales and make more profits, they could drop the prices...it's very easy.

Interesting demonstrations here. The first video makes the vast difference of high dynamic range versus compression apparent even to the uninitiated. I found a similar example on YouTube, which just happens to make use of one of the best reference materials that I know of for this discussion, Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms.

Not to rant again like I did in a recent multi-channel discussion, but that particular SACD, Brothers In Arms, is a shining example of the benefits of the format, including the dynamic range.

In the second video, which is a tad long, he does make some good points, but I take issue with his idea of releasing the same work in the "regular" compressed format, and offering a premium priced product for the higher dynamic range. So you want me to pay more for what was effectively the original recording, and pay less for the one that requires more effort and processing to produce. WTF? Again, just sell the best one, and you'll be rewarded by the market.

I'm tempted to load up Adele's Royal Albert Hall CD (part of the wonderful - and fairly priced - Blu-ray/CD package) into Audacity just for kicks, but having just listened to it I suspect that it'll look pretty good, reflecting a high dynamic range.

And I love his idea about a dynamic range value sticker on the packaging, so long as there's some kind of accountable standard and it's accurate, not just more marketing hype.

I’ll stick to listening to music from Japan and other parts of Asia since the “Loudness War” doesn’t seem to affect most of their music. Besides that IMO most American music these days would still suck even it wasn’t mastered like boring crap.

Agreed. Whole-heartedly.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was curious. As mentioned, here's a track from that Adele CD:


Pretty, huh?

Portions of many tracks (mainly her strong vocals), get really close to +/-1 db, but never clip. A good example of great dynamic range at work, IMO.

Yes, quite impressive looking!

/cry

Neat graph!

The lowest things on that list I’ve liked are U2 – The Joshua Tree and Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon.