... POORLY RECORDED SONGS THAT ...

michael, I still don't understand. Sorry, I might be being dense here.

But if you take a recording with a compressed dynamic range how can you expand the range beyond what exists on the recording? If it isn't there then it isn't there. To take an extreme example: there have been newer recordings in which the compressed DR has lead to clipping. How can you get back what has been clipped, i.e. not there?

Two examples:

Newish band called The Struts. Album is Young and Dangerous. Not ’audiophile’ type music. Very pop. The Dynamic Range database, for what its worth, gives its average DR as 5. Minimum track DR is 4. Max track DR is 6.

Alabama Shakes. Sound & Color. Should be appealing to audiophiles (in terms of content). Max DR is on one track and is 9. Album average is 5. Lowest track DR is 3.

(For what its worth, these numbers are from the site referenced above. I do not know what the units of DR are, I make no claim to the reliability of the data, the owner of the site is very much in the fight against DR compression, and he sells an app to measure it. So he’s in it for the money too.)

The bottom line is that even as a new audiophile the effect of such compression is immediately apparent to my untrained ears to the point I can roughly guess the level of compression. Likewise on CDs with DR in the 12-16 range it is clearly and pleasantly apparent.

I can easily understand how you can work with a piece with a broad DR to ’tune’ how it sounds. I just can’t see how I can do anything to ’tune’ what is simply not there and was, in fact, intentionally engineered out. I can see how it can be made better....but hard to imagine how it can be made ’good’ for what that’s worth.

Thanks for your patience.

Thank you. Will be interesting to see what your take is on them (or any severely compressed DR stuff).