Louder is better.

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My brother was working at Best Buy when the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Californiacation came out in 1999. It's one of the best examples of the loudness war era with terrible dynamic range, clipping in many places, etc. It was so bad that some customers were returning the CD saying it was defective..

Another example was Metallica's Death Magnetic. It was so bad that people were bootlegging tracks from a video game (Guitar Hero).

More examples here. There's a point where loud is too loud..

 

[Blumlein 88]

For practical purposes I find K-level guidelines by Bob Katz pretty excellent as a guide to compress things enough it helps in any reasonable environment without being too much. These preceded the LUFS system.

Level Practices (Part 2) - Digido.com

Digital Domain - we ensure musicians, independent artists and record labels get the best sound possible. Bob Katz provides the best in mastering and mixing.

www.digido.com

Which one is correct? 85 dB SPL or 83 dB SPL from Bob Katz Level Practices

你好， 我找到了 Bob Katz Level Practices 的两个版本。一个是 83 dB SPL，另一个是 85 dB SPL。 哪个是正确的？ 谢谢。 https://www.digido.com/portfolio-item/level-practices-part-2/ https://www.aes.org/technical/documentDownloads.cfm?docID=65...

www.audiosciencereview.com