I’ll say straight up that I am not a big fan of Greta Van Fleet....but I am a huge fan of a band that tours with them from time to time called the Struts.
Same thing happened to me with them. Sounds fine in the car. Sounds okay on ear buds. Sounds like crap on my hi-fi system. Loudness through the roof. Almost too loud at the lowest volume setting. Turning it up makes it worse.
I do not have trained or golden ears when it comes to nuanced listening but I can hardly tolerate overly compressed stuff. Which is almost everything new. I can mess with some of it with a digital equalizer and make it palatable but only just. What follows is a list of great acts with dismal DR on their albums:
Greta Van Fleet
The Struts
Tedeschi Trucks
Gary Clark, Jr
Alabama Shakes
Neko Case
Leon Bridges
St. Paul and the Broken Bones
Just to name a few. Instant listening fatigue.
But here’s the thing, sometimes the DR will be bad on all sources of a band’s album: CD, hi-res download and vinyl. That is the most common. But, in some cases one medium will have much better dynamic range. Gary Clark Jr.’s album Blak and Blu on CD is terrible. On HD Tracks it is considerably better.
I was researching the Tom Petty anthology The Best of Everything and the HD Tracks file has excellent DR. The DR of the CD has not been posted but some reviewers have said it is terrible. I hope that is not true.
Edit: The HD Tracks file is $38. The album set is over $60. The CD is $16..............but it doesn't cost a penny more to record a Cd with good DR than it does to make on with poor DR.
Same thing happened to me with them. Sounds fine in the car. Sounds okay on ear buds. Sounds like crap on my hi-fi system. Loudness through the roof. Almost too loud at the lowest volume setting. Turning it up makes it worse.
I do not have trained or golden ears when it comes to nuanced listening but I can hardly tolerate overly compressed stuff. Which is almost everything new. I can mess with some of it with a digital equalizer and make it palatable but only just. What follows is a list of great acts with dismal DR on their albums:
Greta Van Fleet
The Struts
Tedeschi Trucks
Gary Clark, Jr
Alabama Shakes
Neko Case
Leon Bridges
St. Paul and the Broken Bones
Just to name a few. Instant listening fatigue.
But here’s the thing, sometimes the DR will be bad on all sources of a band’s album: CD, hi-res download and vinyl. That is the most common. But, in some cases one medium will have much better dynamic range. Gary Clark Jr.’s album Blak and Blu on CD is terrible. On HD Tracks it is considerably better.
I was researching the Tom Petty anthology The Best of Everything and the HD Tracks file has excellent DR. The DR of the CD has not been posted but some reviewers have said it is terrible. I hope that is not true.
Edit: The HD Tracks file is $38. The album set is over $60. The CD is $16..............but it doesn't cost a penny more to record a Cd with good DR than it does to make on with poor DR.