... thoughts on Taylor Swift's REPUTATION CD...
Exactly! That’s the trouble. There aren’t enough CDs with great dynamic range. Hel-loo! Life is too short to listen to modest recordings. The reason so many reissued/remastered CDs show up at yard sales, flea markets is because they suck. I look for average DR of 15 or 16. Remember it’s logarithmic. What you want is in the limo. What you get is no tomorrow. |
I think when you look at the perceived decline in the hi-fi/audiophile hobby (if there is a decline, I just hear people talking about it) then I think you would have to add the loudness wars as one of the coffin nails. I like older rock music and like finding old stuff I've never heard but for my interests to stay keen I like an infusion of new stuff too. If the new stuff, even if well written and well performed, is of low SQ....why bother? |
Most newer "improved" pop/rock remasters on CD are mastered louder than the originals. So which approach in general is better? You would think the answer is obvious. The thing is when people shell out more money for the same stuff, they want to hear a noticeable difference and radical digital remastering in various forms is a means to that end. Beyond just being mixed louder usually, you often just might hear things you may not have heard before. |
Whoo hoo someone (Steven Wilson) remastered something recently and apparently got the DR right! http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc?artist=yes&album=fragile |
