IMO recorded music should sound better than it ever has. It does not. Why? The LOUDNESS WAR on the recording (rather than on the listeners volume knob) is a big factor.
I listen to Classic rock. Before I used to have WInamp's preamp at max, it was simply a loudness dial. So, my music was decently mastered (DR 10,12+) but I just sqashed that with this.
The first thing I noticed after turning down my loudness on winamp was the soundstage. Suddenly I found that every instrument followed it's path (separation) and how the drums dominated the rythm. WONDEFUL
Now I'm annoyed at CDs that just only Clip the drums, they sound drowned. If it's louder... horrible.
@wotajared It really is amazing I thought once I did A/B comparisons. I took the Ozzy song, A song by Boston and this master of the Nickleback song and ran them through Wavelabs metanormalizer which analyzed the RMS values of each song and WITHOUT compression matched all the loudnesses. I listened to all 3 songs and I heard exactly what you described above. Suddenly with all the volumes matched how much weaker the Nickleback song sounded compared to the others.
Hey thanks! It's a shame. There is a lot of recorded stuff that I'd like to purchase but don't because of this loudness war thing. I'd like to have a means of undoing the squashing so I could buy stuff and enjoy it anyway, you know, like an anti-brick wall limiter. Buy the stuff, repair the damage, then turn up my volume knob and WRocK OUT!
I listen to Classic rock. Before I used to have WInamp's preamp at max, it was simply a loudness dial. So, my music was decently mastered (DR 10,12+) but I just sqashed that with this.
The first thing I noticed after turning down my loudness on winamp was the soundstage. Suddenly I found that every instrument followed it's path (separation) and how the drums dominated the rythm. WONDEFUL
Now I'm annoyed at CDs that just only Clip the drums, they sound drowned. If it's louder... horrible.
wotajared 6 months ago
@wotajared It really is amazing I thought once I did A/B comparisons. I took the Ozzy song, A song by Boston and this master of the Nickleback song and ran them through Wavelabs metanormalizer which analyzed the RMS values of each song and WITHOUT compression matched all the loudnesses. I listened to all 3 songs and I heard exactly what you described above. Suddenly with all the volumes matched how much weaker the Nickleback song sounded compared to the others.
ctmgtr11 6 months ago
Hey thanks! It's a shame. There is a lot of recorded stuff that I'd like to purchase but don't because of this loudness war thing. I'd like to have a means of undoing the squashing so I could buy stuff and enjoy it anyway, you know, like an anti-brick wall limiter. Buy the stuff, repair the damage, then turn up my volume knob and WRocK OUT!
ctmgtr11 7 months ago