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Wall St. Journal article

Anyone see the WSJ Thursday 9/25 about Metallica's latest cd "Death Magnetic" and how it was mastered for ipod's and was the loudest recording ever? The band wanted it to sound loud through earbuds. The mastering engineer was embarrassed to be associated with the project because we all know that by compressing levels at the mastering stage, the dynamics are completely lost. No subtle cymbals, no strumming guitars. No surprising nuances for audiophiles.Now I realize that Metallica is not exactly marketing to the audiophile set. However, Springsteen's latest cd "Magic" used the same strategy and I thought it sounded like crap.The recordings are designed for low end reproduction and not bringing out the best performance by the artist. If I want a wall of sound, I will crank up my maggies. Comments?
maxnewid
cleaneduphippy
323 posts
 
Well not all artist, and their producers go that route. I know Johnny Sandlin when he was having Bonnie Bramletts "Beautiful" CD mastered fought to make sure that CD was mastered well, and mot let the mastering engineers compress the hell out of it, and basically ruin the recording. Glad to see that there are some producers/engineers that still care how their artist recordings sound, and are not bending over backwards to apppease the Ipod and MP3 crowd.
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,358 posts
 
I have the new Metallica CD.

I think it is a better recording than St. Anger both sonically and content wise. It is definitely not an audiophile recording, but it does sound pretty good in the car and through my Grado SR60 headphones. I'm in the process of changing speakers and did not listen to this disc on the home system yet. Yes, there are no subtle cymbals, no surprising nuances for audiophiles. The drums occasionally sound like tin cans. But it is enjoyable for what it is and definitely a "listenable" recording.

Maxnewid, do you have the disc at home? Have you heard it?
slikric3000
638 posts
 
Can't blame them for marketing their product to the masses. My dad always says " I dunno why they quit making the big wood console tv's " and I keep telling him his 1 tv purchase every 10 or 20 years is not going to keep them in biz.
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