Why has the loudness war not ended yet?

[Deleted member 43441]

I know that this forum is concerned with music reproduction and not necessarily production, but i thought it's a good discussion to have.

iTunes has been applying -16 LUFS loudness normalization 'Sound Check' for over a decade now.

Youtube and Spotify have had loudness normalization (-12 and -14 LUFS respectively) for a very long time as well.

Like what other markets are there so producers are still producing for loudness? Are Radio plays still that relevant in 2021?

I would like to think that the loudness wars are behind us, although I don’t have anything subjectively to back that up. I can say that I believe sound quality in general has gotten much better in the last 10 years. It’s my belief that loudness normalization, something they should’ve adapted years ago is finally being implemented. instead of the 1980s and 1990s if it’s louder it sounds better mentality, it appears to me that a lot more thought and implementation of that thought is going into newer mastering.

I am into two channel music, and listen every day to some form of it, I also spin a lot of vinyl. Although I don’t find the quality of the media itself up to snuff, and the quality of the vinyl and the pressing itself was better in years gone by. I do find that a lot of it is mastered very decent, and much of it sounds very good.

I also listen via DAC, and I think the sound quality of music in general has gotten much much better in the last decade.

 

[Frgirard]

The loudness ware is now and for a moment. The ME have learned how to hide the distortion.
The business want one thing: to be listen and for that the more loud sound is required.
rest assured, the -1dB lufs will be the limit.

Are The Loudness Wars Over ? - Gearspace.com

Commerical CD - recent release from a rock band.

gearspace.com

The new McCartney is overly compressed, clipping like crazy, why? - Gearspace.com

I am listening to the new McCartney III on Spotify. No Loudness compensation active. I am hearing the limiter 'fighting' even on acoustic guitars and piano's (on Women and Wives it sounds as if the piano was processed by a tremolo!). The audio i

gearspace.com

 

[Deleted member 43441]

The loudness ware is now and for a moment. The ME have learned how to hide the distortion.
The business want one thing: to be listen and for that the more loud sound is required.
rest assured, the -1dB lufs will be the limit.

Are The Loudness Wars Over ? - Gearspace.com

Commerical CD - recent release from a rock band.

gearspace.com

The new McCartney is overly compressed, clipping like crazy, why? - Gearspace.com

I am listening to the new McCartney III on Spotify. No Loudness compensation active. I am hearing the limiter 'fighting' even on acoustic guitars and piano's (on Women and Wives it sounds as if the piano was processed by a tremolo!). The audio i

gearspace.com

But is it the norm? Is this the industry standard anymore, or just here and there?

 

[TBone]

Over the last two decades, the lure of higher "resolution" music has wrongly been associated with increased bit/sampling rates with little interest in preserving dynamic content/realistic instrumental impact. In turn, reviewers blindly pushed format over quality, further muddling the waters.

decades later ... streaming the norm ... marketing bs (mqa) still follows suit ... so nothing much has changed.

... we may have won a few battles along the way, but the loudness war was lost a long time ago.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Kind of disappointing.

 

[sergeauckland]

Talk to "people on the street" about audio. Most don't care. Of those who care, price is most important, then appearance. The ones that are left are autosound and headbangers, and they sure as hell don't mind compression.

In my town, I know one other person who hates the loudness wars. One person. One stinking, solitary person. That's all. No one else cares.

So now you know why we lost the loudness wars. Jim Taylor

Talking to people even in the entertainment industry themselves, musicians, broadcasters etc, nobody even knows what I'm talking about when I mention Audio Quality. An MP3 is an MP3, whether 96kbps or 320kbps. Loudness? Bring it on ! Lovely, sounds great in my earbuds and in the car.

Youtube is now the arbiter of Audio Quality.

S.

 

[TBone]

Talk to "people on the street" about audio. Most don't care. Of those who care, price is most important, then appearance. The ones that are left are autosound and headbangers, and they sure as hell don't mind compression.

In my town, I know one other person who hates the loudness wars. One person. One stinking, solitary person. That's all. No one else cares.

So now you know why we lost the loudness wars. Jim Taylor

sad but true, nobody cared, nobody cares. even on this board, more people seem to care more about distortions @-96dB on some dac, rather than the proper preservation of the music played on said device.

get the ave joe no giving a hoot ... why would they ... but audiophiles should've cared, reviewers should have cared and not blindly followed, allow their marketing bs to permeate their readership... rather ... the vast majority stood by and watched as the bulk of popular music got bastardize ...

 

[Inner Space]

Lovely, sounds great in my earbuds and in the car.

This is the issue, from my studio-based perspective. In fact the "loudness wars" ended some time ago, but coincidentally the exact same symptoms continued in what we should now call the "quietness wars" - 99% of people are listening in noisy, casual environments, but on equipment capable of very low max levels before it craps out, such that the difference between minimum required and maximum tolerated is tiny. Hence extreme compression.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Talking to people even in the entertainment industry themselves, musicians, broadcasters etc, nobody even knows what I'm talking about when I mention Audio Quality. An MP3 is an MP3, whether 96kbps or 320kbps. Loudness? Bring it on ! Lovely, sounds great in my earbuds and in the car.

Youtube is now the arbiter of Audio Quality.

S.

Although I appreciate your comment…

I dislike what audio industry is doing right now.

How do you account for all of the high resolution streaming services now? Even Apple jumped on the bandwagon.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

This is the issue, from my studio-based perspective. In fact the "loudness wars" ended some time ago, but coincidentally the exact same symptoms continued in what we should now call the "quietness wars" - 99% of people are listening in noisy, casual environments, but on equipment capable of very low max levels before it craps out, such that the difference between minimum required and maximum tolerated is tiny. Hence extreme compression.

I’m not getting it, either the loudness wars ended or they didn’t, it can’t be both ways.

Not to rain on your post, but which is it?

I’m going by my recordings that I listen to sound better, Amazon music HD sounds great, and most of my newer vinyl records sound very good. I don’t get the shrill anymore, I don’t feel like anybody is running their nails down a chalkboard.

In my opinion it’s the lack of an industry standard, or not following what the industry laid out long ago.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

sad but true, nobody cared, nobody cares. even on this board, more people seem to care more about distortions @-96dB on some dac, rather than the proper preservation of the music played on said device.

get the ave joe no giving a hoot ... why would they ... but audiophiles should've cared, reviewers should have cared and not blindly followed, allow their marketing bs to permeate their readership... rather ... the vast majority stood by and watched as the bulk of popular music got bastardize ...

I’m beginning to see the light, And yes I agree no matter how good something measures if your source isn't up to snuff it all goes out the window.

 

[TBone]

Kind of disappointing.

Completely disappointing, hence my frustration with this hobby, stakeholders have allowed this bs to happen, many knowingly, and too many audiophiles bit, literally.

the term "audiophile" is now meaningless, most 'philes today end up chasing their tales "trying" to improve SQ without really having a clue. too many, piss on vinyl sq as they preach "better" compressed digital superior.

buy buy buy ... thats the rapala ... update update update ... get something better better better ... loop ... then preach such justifications base entirely on format, cost and/or bias.

(big sigh)

 

[Zensō]

How do you account for all of the high resolution streaming services now? Even Apple jumped on the bandwagon.

Purely marketing. Certainly no one thinks people will hear the difference between 256 AAC and lossless while listening with Airpods in a noisy environment.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Marketing. Certainly we don’t think people will hear the difference between 256 AAC and lossless on Airpods on a busy city street.

Oy vey. I understand that, but I don’t listen with any sort of headphone, I guess that makes me a dinosaur lol.

So how does the Hi-Res measure compared to 256 AAC? What does it look like on an analyzer.

Certainly it sounds better to me, running through a good DAC on my two channel setup. Amazon HD sounds as good as my CDs should I say. Pretty indistinguuable, and I think I can pick out a CD out from a MP3 or AAC.

Or maybe I could not.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

For the ones that know that this is pretty much a sham… How do you listen to your music… what quality and on what media?

Or do you just deal with what they put out?

 

[Zensō]

Oy vey. I understand that, but I don’t listen with any sort of headphone, I guess that makes me a dinosaur lol.

So how does the Hi-Res measure compared to 256 AAC? What does it look like on an analyzer.

Certainly it sounds better to me, running through a good DAC on my two channel setup. Amazon HD sounds as good as my CDs should I say. Pretty indistinguuable, and I think I can pick out a CD out from a MP3 or AAC.

Or maybe I could not.

You’d have to run a clean AB test for yourself to know. The larger studies have shown that an overwhelming number of people (approaching 99%) cannot distinguish between high bitrate Ogg or AAC versus lossless or hi-res. Interestingly, in a couple of tests, where people could discern a difference, they actually preferred the compressed files over the lossless. As you’d imagine, that didn’t go over well… lol.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re now in the realm of looking for fairies dancing on the head of a pin, at least in regards to codecs and formats. Mastering is the most important thing, followed by transducers, then electronics, then the electronic delivery medium (assuming at least high bitrate compressed).

 

[sergeauckland]

Although I appreciate your comment…

I dislike what audio industry is doing right now.

How do you account for all of the high resolution streaming services now? Even Apple jumped on the bandwagon.

I think TBone had it in post #64 above. It's all about sales and money, not art. If people will pay for yet another copy of Dark Side Of The Moon, in yet another format, when considering the original was done on analogue tape, then take their money. If the public want convenience over quality, then take their money. If 'quality' means sounding good on the train in earbuds, give it to them. If 'Quality' means reformatting old analogue recordings to 24/96 or above, do it, and take their money. That's 'quality' now. It's a numbers game.

I think I know just one other person in my social circle for whom listening to music is an activity they dedicate time to. For everyone else, it's something they do whilst driving, cooking, going to work or at work, nothing they can or want to concentrate on.

S.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

You’d have to run a clean AB test for yourself to know. The larger studies have shown that an overwhelming number of people (approaching 99%) cannot distinguish between high bitrate Ogg or AAC versus lossless or hi-res. Interestingly, in a couple of tests, where people could discern a difference, they actually preferred the compressed files over the lossless. As you’d imagine, that didn’t go over well… lol.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re now in the realm of looking for fairies dancing on the head of a pin, at least in regards to codecs and formats. Mastering is the most important thing, followed by transducers, then electronics, then the electronic delivery medium (assuming at least high bitrate compressed).

That’s a real shame in my opinion, and I guess I have listened to the marketing fluff.

I would think that I fall into that 99% and probably could not distinguish one over the other, so I’ll concede that. My next question would be… Is the Hi-Rez better for my gear?

I know problems especially at high volumes happen with distortion. Is there less distortion in the Hi-Rez version of our music?

 

[Deleted member 43441]

I think TBone had it in post #64 above. It's all about sales and money, not art. If people will pay for yet another copy of Dark Side Of The Moon, in yet another format, when considering the original was done on analogue tape, then take their money. If the public want convenience over quality, then take their money. If 'quality' means sounding good on the train in earbuds, give it to them. If 'Quality' means reformatting old analogue recordings to 24/96 or above, do it, and take their money. That's 'quality' now. It's a numbers game.

I think I know just one other person in my social circle for whom listening to music is an activity they dedicate time to. For everyone else, it's something they do whilst driving, cooking, going to work or at work, nothing they can or want to concentrate on.

S.

I guess I listen to the marketing nonsense to some degree. Right now I subscribe to Amazon HD, and I buy vinyl. So for less than $80 a year streaming service I’m not out a lot of money.

I also do it while cooking and driving, but I spend sometimes hours a day trying to improve things and giving a good hard listen to my music.

 

[Zensō]

Completely disappointing, hence my frustration with this hobby, stakeholders have allowed this bs to happen, many knowingly, and too many audiophiles bit, literally.

the term "audiophile" is now meaningless, most 'philes today end up chasing their tales "trying" to improve SQ without really having a clue. too many, piss on vinyl sq as they preach "better" compressed digital superior.

buy buy buy ... thats the rapala ... update update update ... get something better better better ... loop ... then preach such justifications base entirely on format, cost and/or bias.

(big sigh)

This “hobby” is a lot like the photography hobby. For some, it‘s more about gear research and acquisition than actually listening to music (or taking photographs). The problem is that we can now buy extremely good gear for relatively little money, and once we have it there’s nothing left to buy. Those who are in it for the gear need to invent reasons to upgrade or the buying and selling quickly comes to a grinding halt. Of course, the manufacturers are more than happy to oblige.