Albums that sound worse the better the hi-fi equipment

[ReggieB]

Thinking about it ....

Billy Joel: Storm Front, and in particular the track "The Downeaster 'Alexa'". On a cheap system the sound really invoked the atmosphere of crashing waves. However, with a better system the instruments separate and you don't get the same single effect. So for a while I stopped listening to it.

.... and then I returned to it. Now I realise that I like it. And being a softy at heart, I can't help but enjoy "Leningrad". So it just took a little getting used to.

[HighFidelityGuy]

Yeah, I've found this too. Most metal, heavy rock, emo rock and other stuff that's suffered from the loudness war tends to get shown up as badly recorded in my system. It's an odd problem and it's something that kind of took me by surprise as I thought most of the CD's I owned were quite well recorded. Unfortunately I was proved wrong.

[RANT]
It seems that a lot of popular music over the years and especially these days has been mixed to sound good on the radio in your kitchen or car, in a club or on iPod headphones etc depending on the genre. I guess this makes sense from a business point of view as they're the places most people will listen to the tracks. So if they sound "good" to most people there, then they're more likely to go out and buy it. Unfortunately that's not the way us "audiophiles" do things. It only tends to be classical music, Jazz and music from musicians/singers that are only interested in recording high quality performances of high quality music and aren't interested in making much money that sounds good on a proper Hi-Fi. The new trend of iPods as being the source of all music really hasn't helped. I really don't get all this iPod dock stuff. I'd maybe have one as a basic upstairs type system but that's all they're good for.

The whole music and movie business is broken. It's all about making a product that lots of sheep people will buy and then forget about so they'll go on to buy the next thing as quickly as possible, making the maximum profit for the studios. It should be about quality products, not quantity. I'd much rather own one excellent album that ticks all the boxes than 10 mediocre albums.
[/RANT]

[magiccarpetride]

Yeah, I've found this too. Most metal, heavy rock, emo rock and other stuff that's suffered from the loudness war tends to get shown up as badly recorded in my system. It's an odd problem and it's something that kind of took me by surprise as I thought most of the CD's I owned were quite well recorded. Unfortunately I was proved wrong.

[RANT]
It seems that a lot of popular music over the years and especially these days has been mixed to sound good on the radio in your kitchen or car, in a club or on iPod headphones etc depending on the genre. I guess this makes sense from a business point of view as they're the places most people will listen to the tracks. So if they sound "good" to most people there, then they're more likely to go out and buy it. Unfortunately that's not the way us "audiophiles" do things. It only tends to be classical music, Jazz and music from musicians/singers that are only interested in recording high quality performances of high quality music and aren't interested in making much money that sounds good on a proper Hi-Fi. The new trend of iPods as being the source of all music really hasn't helped. I really don't get all this iPod dock stuff. I'd maybe have one as a basic upstairs type system but that's all they're good for.

The whole music and movie business is broken. It's all about making a product that lots of sheep people will buy and then forget about so they'll go on to buy the next thing as quickly as possible, making the maximum profit for the studios. It should be about quality products, not quantity. I'd much rather own one excellent album that ticks all the boxes than 10 mediocre albums.
[/RANT]

OK, now you've touched my sore spot! Bad as the introduction of mp3 was back in the 1990's, it's nothing compared to the loudness war that had infested recorded music in the 2000s. At this point, I'd much rather listen to a 128kbps mp3, created from a well recorded (dynamics preserved) audio track, than to a lossless crunched and over-compressed loudness war audio track.

People, nothing is worse and more heinous than this loudness war. It sucks the soul right out of even the most beautiful music. Not only that, but after listening to the loudness war music, it is impossible to go back to the normally recorded music. You need some quiet time for your ears to cleanse, to get rid of all the toxins that the loudness war pushed on you.

How do we stop this madness? Can we change the laws and instead of going after the music pirates, go after the loudness wars engineers? Hit them on their wallets? Jail an engineer and a producer or two, to serve as a warning?

[John]

OK, now you've touched my sore spot! Bad as the introduction of mp3 was back in the 1990's, it's nothing compared to the loudness war that had infested recorded music in the 2000s. At this point, I'd much rather listen to a 128kbps mp3, created from a well recorded (dynamics preserved) audio track, than to a lossless crunched and over-compressed loudness war audio track.

People, nothing is worse and more heinous than this loudness war. It sucks the soul right out of even the most beautiful music. Not only that, but after listening to the loudness war music, it is impossible to go back to the normally recorded music. You need some quiet time for your ears to cleanse, to get rid of all the toxins that the loudness war pushed on you.

How do we stop this madness? Can we change the laws and instead of going after the music pirates, go after the loudness wars engineers? Hit them on their wallets? Jail an engineer and a producer or two, to serve as a warning?

I suggest moan on bands forums about how bad the sound is and how much it is getting in the way of you loving the album You never know sooner or latter they might take notice

[HighFidelityGuy]

I suggest moan on bands forums about how bad the sound is and how much it is getting in the way of you loving the album You never know sooner or latter they might take notice

That's a good idea, nice one! I might do some ranting the next time I buy a ruined album.

I've been a bit disappointed by Deftones latest album as that suffers from some over compression. There's one track in particular where the drums come in on their own at the beginning and they're really up front and powerful. Which is good on it's own. But then as each instrument comes in they get pushed further and further back in the mix, so the overall volume stays the same. Why? It should build up as it would if it was played live. I don't want to listen to music that's the same level all the way through, I want dynamics!

Compression just sucks the life out of the music. I keep hearing new music that sounds quite well written and performed when I hear it on the radio but when I play it at home I can't listen for long as I get annoyed at how badly it's been recorded or mixed. I don't understand why the artists are putting up with the way their art is getting ruined. I can't imagine a painter putting up with an art gallery scanning in their work, boosting all the colours to make it more vivid and then displaying that version because they thought it made it stand out more. They'd go mental.

Luckily most of the new music that suffers is just chart bollocks that I've got no interest in but it is spreading. I really hate how it's affecting re-releases and the so called remastered releases. I've bought a couple of best of albums recently that have obviously been brightened up and boosted and compressed. It makes it very difficult to find a good sounding version of a track/album you like. The other problem I have is that I like quite a lot of rock music from the 60's and 70's but I find the original recording too dull and fuzzy and the remasters too harsh and grainy, so I can't win.

[magiccarpetride]

I suggest moan on bands forums about how bad the sound is and how much it is getting in the way of you loving the album You never know sooner or latter they might take notice

That would mean me and the original band members! I've heard a number of musicians bitching how they got shafted by their management and got tricked into slipping into this loudness war. It's often beyond their control. They either get to play the rigged dirty game the way the marketeers and promoters dictate, or they are told to take a hike.

Sometimes they don't even get to realize how horribly screwed did they get until the CD is released! By then, it's already too late...

[magiccarpetride]

Compression just sucks the life out of the music. I keep hearing new music that sounds quite well written and performed when I hear it on the radio but when I play it at home I can't listen for long as I get annoyed at how badly it's been recorded or mixed.

The worrisome part is how younger generations are by now conditioned by this lousy quality sound. Just to give you an illustration: I'm a guitarist, and recently started building my little amateurish home studio in my house. I've recorded a couple of demo tracks (just me and my guitar, overdubbing some parts and vocals), just captured the sound live, completely unadulterated, using a good condenser microphone. I mixed the tracks down without any doctoring, didn't apply any effects nor reverb or echo to the tracks.

Then I played my songs through my high end stereo, and it all sounded drop dead gorgeous, just crystal clear with loads of dynamics. But my son complained that he doesn't like how it sounds. I was surprised at first, and then later on realized that it's probably because he is so used to the crappy over-processed over-compressed sound that he gets through his iPod all the time.