Are the loudness wars fake so record companies can destroy the music?

I still don’t have an adequate conspiracy theory that works any better than your explanation or anyone else’s so I’m not ready to go down that path either.

I still think that for a number of years it was just the thing to do for reasons you mention and other reasons that were more valid 10-20 years ago and now it is just the de facto procedure. I suspect there is a fear among pop and high volume producers that if their song with minimal compression is played next to most any other songs in a system that is not normalized that their song will be thought to be the one with the problem and not the others and not be willing to risk it.

I also wonder what "normalized" means these days when the norm is loud and compressed.

Likewise, I suspect that the reason the problem is less common on vinyl is the reasonable assumption that people listening to vinyl are more discriminating. I just wish that attitude would carry over to CD (my preferred format). I think the reason it doesn’t carry over to CD is that currently CDs for new music are probably just an afterthought at most.

It seems like most of us audiophiles have 'push button' issues that set us off. It might be cables, it might be power supplies, it might be room treatment, it might be crystals and magnets. For me it is DR compression.  ;-)

Uberwaltz nailed it.

There’s no conspiracy here, music is just not being mastered for Audiophiles anymore, if it ever was. It’s being mastered to sound as good as possible on the devices that 98% of the world listen on. Phones, tablets, laptops and earbuds.

Is it a sad state of affairs for audiophiles who love dynamic range? Definitely. Is it a conspiracy? Not at all.

The problem is that compression doesn't actually make it sound as good as possible on typical devices and normalization often renders even that 'effect' pointless.

So that might be the reason why it is done but it still isn't a very good reason.


Of course many accepted standards don't make sense.

n80

The problem is that compression doesn’t actually make it sound as good as possible on typical devices and normalization often renders even that ’effect’ pointless.

I don’t know why you’re having so much trouble understanding this because it’s really simple, as @pesky_wabbit explained.

pesky_wabbit

... most people nowadays listen to music in noisy environments, and unless the music is loud and compressed they don‘t get to hear the quiet bits. The profits lie where the majority of consumers exist.
We are a distinct minority.

I know I'm beating a dead horse. And I don't mean to be argumentative. And I very well may be misunderstanding something. I probably am.


But........as has been said before, and not just by me, most of what people hear through ear buds is normalized. As I have played with normalization in iTunes and in Amazon Music nothing gets turned up. Only down. In fact, in Amazon HD normalization has no effect on minimally compressed song. Only on compressed songs. Can't say about other platforms.


In other words, as far as I can tell, the volume of a DR uncompressed song is not increased to match the volume of a DR compressed songs. The volume of compressed songs is decreased. So if that normalization decreases the volume of overly compressed songs there is no real benefit even where there is background noise. The softer bits will be made softer by the normalization. To hear them the volume has to be turned up by the user.....just like with an uncompressed song.

It could be that I'm overestimating the use of normalization. Maybe the 13 year old ear bud listeners uniformly turn it off.