The Loudness War

February 21st, 2009 by Potato

I thought I sent this to Netbug a while ago, and thought that maybe he’d do a whole blog post thing on it, since it seems like it would be up his alley, but maybe my MSN wasn’t working right at work that day or something… Anyway… It seems that modern CDs have been reducing the dynamic range to make the overall track seem louder, which lessens the overall experience since there’s less highs and lows (less kick to the drums, etc). This has been termed “the loudness war“. Anyway, I thought it made for an interesting read, and also made me wonder if that’s the reason why some audiophiles have such a fondness for vinyl: nothing to do with digitization or the “authenticity” of scratches and pops, but just that tracks mastered for vinyl had better dynamic ranges so the music had more soul.

One Response to “The Loudness War”

  1. Netbug Says:

    Nope, didn’t get that link from you. It’s interesting though, and confirms what I’ve been noticing; especially in popular music.

    Link is broken to my blog, btw (not that I’ve gotten off my lazy ass and posted anything worthwhile in 2 months).