Loudness War

Interesting that the Sheffield Lab Drum Track comes out the in the top 5.

And, for those who don't trust their ears, clear proof that the Beatles Mono 2009 remasters have more dynamic range than the stereo versions...

And the top 20 is all music from the 80 - I rest my case - this was when teh recording industry production quality peaked...

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?sort=dr&order=desc

Very useful site! Thanks for sharing!

While I know this is a audiophile site, I do want to speak out that you, as a consumer segment, have very little economic pull left in the market place. With the record labels in a death spin, and consumer electronics flat to declining, many content providers are faced with the prospect that the only end device that matters is the cell phone and iPod-like player. In China alone, there are over 780 million phones that could be music enabled, with another 100 million each in Japan and Korea. Music is now the number one feature set in India (WSJ did an extensive article on this two weeks ago). Compression allows music to sound good in this environment at the expense of your environment. As much as I am in favor of uncompressed music, the fact remains that you have little "pull" or "say" in the next frontier of music. In total, only 2 million "new" vinyl records were shipped last year. Digital downloading represents the only true channel remaining. Sorry ladies and gents, but the loudness war is over and you are on the losing side.

"but the loudness war is over and you are on the losing side"

PRobably true in the overall big picture.

However high end audio has always been a niche market and there will always be people who enjoy good sound and are willing to focus time and energy achieving it.

The glass will hope remain part full for a long time, so look at the bright side and just enjoy all the good music and decent recordings out there.

Still, a bit is a terrible thing to waste!!!!

Interesting that more recent remasters of most Genesis score lower than earlier versions from the 1990s.

I have both versions of Foxtrot and have never compared. I need to rip those to the music server and see whats going on there......

Mapman says;
'By the way, a lot of newer "loud" recorded CDs will cream lesser audio systems not capable of delivering the goods to an audiophile's ears. In some cases, I believe the shortcoming is in the audio systems ability to deliver the "loud" dynamics present without distortion, not an inherent shortcoming with the recording itself.'

The only correction/alteration I would give is to substitute 'In some cases' to 'In ALL cases'.

TRUE.
If your speakers are up to scratch then everything will sound at a minimum musical and enjoyable.
I was of the opinion many years ago that the cd was the issue, now I have seen the light and view the opposite to be true, after I visited a well respected hi-fi reviewer in the UK and heard his gear. Hearing WAS believing, nothing played sounded bad.