Loudness War

Obviously, New artists and older artists are allowing their work to be produced in this manner. Maybe they are the ones that need to put their foot down. There was a post on Audiogon right after Springsteen's "Magic" and Metallica's "Death Magnetic" CD's were released. Most posters described Death Magnetic as distorted and unlistenable and "Magic" wasn't rated much better. These are just two examples of recording artists that have been in the business for over 20 years, so they should know better than to allow their work to be produced like this.

A good example of a recent popular tune that is compressed to the nth degree is "Right Round" by Flo Rida.

They use this tune in a workout class I do and I like it, so I downloaded an mp3 from amazon for .99 cents. It would be so much better if every last bit of dynamic range possible had not been sucked out of it. Still a fun tune though!

I have downloaded some other inexpensive mp3s that do sound better, so I think it is not the mp3 format that is responsible, more the designs of the producers.

The Dead or Alive original version is much better - less compressed. The extended mix has good dynamics.

Sorry was away for a few days and did not imagine this thread would have produced such a large response.

Firstly - Elizabeth - "I assume you are complaining about the CD remastering and just new mastering of ROCK music."
??
Don't think so - Naxos are just as guilty of this errant production as Warner Bros.

Secondly - I see many threads around suggesting 2 vrms output for cd players/DACs is too much for preamps & poweramps, but surely we must look at the volume of the source of the source!

Mapman - I will purchase Revival to do some testing! More thoughts on this soon....will look forward to more opinions on what is surely a part of the larger problem of audio component matching!

The SACD of Thriller is just that....thrilling. If you've got a SACD player it's a must have.