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... thoughts on Taylor Swift's REPUTATION CD...

Hello to all... Am wondering how other audiophile folks who critically listen to music as coordinated recorded sounds access the newest offering from Taylor Swift.

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT IF YOU HAVE NOT YET HEARD THE CD IN ITS ENTIRETY.
AND PLEASE LIMIT COMMENTS WITH REGARDS TO SOUND - NOT ALL THE OTHER STUFF (looks, dating, etc) 

I find the recording fairly well done: abit thumpy throughout (which seems to be the trend in pop/indie music for the masses), but highly divergent in tones, dynamics, and harmonies. Deep and wide soundstage... Most vocals (within my system) are believeable (for the most part) but sometimes muddy up at the complicated refrains with several overdubs of her voice...

I think this is a good stereo test recording. YOUR THOUGHTS APPRECIATED...
justvintagestuff
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,151 posts
 
Actually the average dynamic range measure of 10 for that recording is better than average. Regardless, no one measure including dynamic range alone is a reliable indictor of whether a recording will sound good to someone or not. I’ve heard some metal recordings on the very low end of that scale like the CD release of Death Magnetic by Metallica that deliver quite well for The genre but only if the system is up to snuff and can play loud without clipping and adding distortion.
n80
2,116 posts
 
Just in my very brief experience I have found that 9 and up (on the scale used by the dr-loudness wars site) seems pretty good. Some of the albums I've cited hover around 6 or 7 and even to my untrained ears it sounds unpleasant and seems impossible to find that just right volume level.
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
@mapman , the average DR of 10 is for vinyl and I agree with you that it's better than most digital files which are pressed to vinyl. 
The CD and download (itunes mp4) measures an average of 6. This digital file is what most of this demographic will be listening to. This is the issue that the article addresses; other genres besides pop music get the same treatment and that's the problem.

I also agree with your point about some highly compressed heavy metal sounding acceptable. The difference may be that pop music is a mix of electronic effects layered throughout. Metal is well mic'd musicians recorded and mixed using standard industry techniques.


geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
The whole reason for aggressive compression is to be able boost the level. Those aggregious CDs, downloads or LPs are *already loud*. But they don’t have dynamics.That’s why they call it the Loudness Wars. *Turning up the volume doesn’t help dynamics.* You can’t fool Mother Nature. It still sounds stupid. Hel-loo! As I keep saying, if it doesn’t have dynamics it ain’t music! I refuse to listen to it. But feel free to knock yourself out. 10 is not really acceptable in my book. It’s logarithmic, remember. What you want is up around 14 and above. Those are good numbers. Ten is barely acceptable. And when ten is average that means much of the recording is unacceptable.
n80
2,116 posts
 
Agree with you. However, I don't find too many CDs with average DR above 14 and I usually find 12 and up okay for me.

I would also point out that even a lot of hi-res downloadable files are victims of the loudness wars. They may not be compressed from a data standpoint but they are from a DR standpoint. This is a generalization, of course, but it is not safe to assume that because it is on Tidal or one of the hi-res file purchase sites that it does not have DR compression.
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