Half the information on CDs is analogue

Axelfonze,

I agree with you that it is the market (cars, iPod's in the gym etc.) that drives the industry to "hot" sounding CD's and nothing to do with the technology or the mastering engineer's abilities. Fortunately movie soundtracks have not headed so relentlessly towards "loudness wars" and many soundtracks for movies sound very good.

Perhaps the only solution for audiophiles to hit back is to complain to the labels, artists and producers...in the end it spells opportunity for a new Telarc, Chesky or a new Sheffield labs etc. to be born out of the "boring monotony of the loudness wars".....may be a new "Axelfonze" label where pop music still has dynamic range? .....much like Starbucks simply offered good coffee at a time where it was becoming almost impossible to find good coffee in much of North America...the rest is history.

Axelfonze: I have been in studios and could sit here and pick apart your response, highlighting tons of flaws that take place in most every session, but that would only create further tension and debate. As a general rule though, i do agree with a lot of what you have said.

With that in mind, it is up to those that are "industry professionals" that still have some form of integrity to do their job as best possible and speak up about the matter. To me, this would mean taking the time to educate the performers, making them aware of the different methods used to make good and / or bad sounding recordings. I can guarantee that most every performer would rather have their records sound as good as possible, even it meant sacrificing some volume. If such weren't the case, we wouldn't have folks like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, etc... making the comments that they are. If we can get the performers educated and involved, it will be hard for the "industry professionals" responsible for this mess to ignore pressure from both sides i.e. the bands and the consumers.

Those in marketing are the idiots responsible for the "volume wars" that the aforementioned article talks about. Getting through to them will be difficult, but we really do need to take steps to see what we can do. While i have a million projects going as it is, i'm going to see what we can do about this. Obviously, this will take a LOT of help from others, both end users and those within the industry. When i get some time and start to make some progress organizing some type of "protest", i'll surely post something here and at AA.

Obviously, this type of protest will meet with some within the recording industry, but my guess is, that most engineers want to be proud of their work and how their work sounds. As such, they might take offense to some of the comments made here and how they are perceived in the future, but the bottom line is that we both strive for the same thing. Good music that is well recorded and well preserved for a long time to come. Sean
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If we can get the performers educated and involved, it will be hard for the "industry professionals" responsible for this mess to ignore pressure from both sides i.e. the bands and the consumers

There's no pressure from consumers.

Regards,

Metralla: You're absolutely right and we need to change that in a very organized, large scale and highly publicized manner. That's what i'm going to try working on sometime shortly. Sean
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Again:

If we can get the performers educated and involved, it will be hard for the "industry professionals".... to ignore pressure from both sides i.e. the bands and the consumers.

I'd forget consumers and focvus on performers. But then, you'd need stars with considerable commercial clout to set such a trend. I expect the sound engineers will follow and probably crack open a few bottles of champagne while they're at it.

So the question is, can we convince say, Madonna, to switch to 0dB fs recordings and talk about it too???