Robin L
Master Contributor
A lot of the thinking behind so many pop hits of the sixties and seventies.
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Dynamic range - dumb question.
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tuga
Major Contributor
Early Telarc, BIS and Sheffield Lab recordings used minimalist mic'ing and no dynamic compression.
tuga
Major Contributor
The top plot is Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" (quite good for pop-rock), bottom is Sibelius Violin Concerto (Kavakos, Sinfonia Lahti, Vänskä).
Bob-23
Senior Member
Thanks for the big quotation - interesting! Until now I've thought it's technically impossible...I'll give it a listen, occasionally! I must admit, I've always found it - for convenience reasons - somehow difficult listening to a symphony, recorded with very little dynamic compression, without having the finger on the remote control, or without having the volume knob (very)nearby in case of headphone listening...Early Telarc, BIS and Sheffield Lab recordings used minimalist mic'ing and no dynamic compression.
tuga
Major Contributor
I have learned that the lower the distortion produced by the electronics the louder you can play without fatigue.
You also need a quiet room.
The DR of the more dynamic classical recordings I own is somewhere around 60dB-wide anyway.
This is from a Denon recording of Kocsis playing Bartók piano works:
tuga
Major Contributor
It is a huge problem, particularly for those sitting in front of the brass. Some wear protection earplugs, others deflectors like this one:
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Teacher made me play bass clarinet in all orchestral pieces. It's a fun instrument to play, but it's also a extremely not fun instrument to play.
You kind of have be a bass clarinet player to understand. (bassoon too)
You kind of have be a bass clarinet player to understand. (bassoon too)
Unfun because, well, you're smooshed between the loudass brass and french horns, plus right beside the percussion, AND you get the honorable privledge to play one boring note over and over and over. Fun because, well, lets just face it, how cool is it to play a 40 inch long hunk of wood and metal? Nothing quite like it being sat down and looking all cool in the middle of everyone...
Not just classical musicians... The trombones and saxes in front of me in a big band or jazz band have to take care at times. In that scenario at least we trumpets are usually standing so not quite as bad as in the orchestra. The clarinets and bassoons were in front of the trumpets in the orchestra I used to play and they would wear hearing protection at times. When I played in some rock bands a lot of times the guitar amps behind me were plenty loud enough to cause my ears to ring.
It’s also very possible that some tracks are not going to have much dynamic range. A violin solo of Pachelbel's Canon, can be a great recording and have little dr.
1. Classical musicians - I was talking with my oldest brother yesterday, who was (still is, occasionally, at what, 78 or something?) an amateur classical musician (cello and french horn).
When I complained about the 'time delay' on his retirement centers' phone system, he said, oh, did I tell you I've been wearing hearing aides for the last few years.
And when I asked why in earth, as a largely academic engineer, his hearing should should go bad (<7khz), he was absolutely baffled.)...until I mentioned what I'd read about sound levels within an orchestra (cello - right in front of brass section?).
Sometimes even highly knowledgeable engineers can't always put 2+2 together.
So thanks to ASR threads, he now has a pretty good clue why his hearing has suffered so much!
2. Re: "I must admit, I've always found it - for convenience reasons - somehow difficult listening to a symphony, recorded with very little dynamic compression, without having the finger on the remote control, or without having the volume knob (very)nearby in case of headphone listening... "
I had that same experience as well - until I upgraded to an OktoDAC.
Now I find that with well recorded classical music I have to leave the volume set to 100%.
(I have a fairly low background noise listening environment.)
At that setting I get the full dynamic range of an orchestra now, and - weirdly? - find the listening experience much much less 'annoying' (esp. in the 'dive for the volume knob' sense).
I can now hear the quiet passages quite clearly, but also get the full dynamic impact of the loudest sections, even though it gets very loud.
I had previously kind of pooh-poohed the whole DR thing, but with this new DAC, I'm continually finding new 'excitements', and am much more aware of good DR recordings.
The above plots are also I think representative of what I've found - that pretty much all 'other' music needs to be set at more modest levels, but that any ('good', or uncompressed) large orchestral recording has to be set to 100%.
I never expected the huge dynamic range improvement of a great DAC to make even a noticeable difference, or that I'd actually prefer playing classical music so much 'louder'.
It's also re-awakened my interest in orchestral classical music (I'd previously 'restricted' myself largely to chamber music).
Huh.
Good discussion.
When I complained about the 'time delay' on his retirement centers' phone system, he said, oh, did I tell you I've been wearing hearing aides for the last few years.
And when I asked why in earth, as a largely academic engineer, his hearing should should go bad (<7khz), he was absolutely baffled.)...until I mentioned what I'd read about sound levels within an orchestra (cello - right in front of brass section?).
Sometimes even highly knowledgeable engineers can't always put 2+2 together.
So thanks to ASR threads, he now has a pretty good clue why his hearing has suffered so much!
2. Re: "I must admit, I've always found it - for convenience reasons - somehow difficult listening to a symphony, recorded with very little dynamic compression, without having the finger on the remote control, or without having the volume knob (very)nearby in case of headphone listening... "
I had that same experience as well - until I upgraded to an OktoDAC.
Now I find that with well recorded classical music I have to leave the volume set to 100%.
(I have a fairly low background noise listening environment.)
At that setting I get the full dynamic range of an orchestra now, and - weirdly? - find the listening experience much much less 'annoying' (esp. in the 'dive for the volume knob' sense).
I can now hear the quiet passages quite clearly, but also get the full dynamic impact of the loudest sections, even though it gets very loud.
I had previously kind of pooh-poohed the whole DR thing, but with this new DAC, I'm continually finding new 'excitements', and am much more aware of good DR recordings.
The above plots are also I think representative of what I've found - that pretty much all 'other' music needs to be set at more modest levels, but that any ('good', or uncompressed) large orchestral recording has to be set to 100%.
I never expected the huge dynamic range improvement of a great DAC to make even a noticeable difference, or that I'd actually prefer playing classical music so much 'louder'.
It's also re-awakened my interest in orchestral classical music (I'd previously 'restricted' myself largely to chamber music).
Huh.
Good discussion.
Robin L
Master Contributor
Note that "Fast Car" is designed to have limited dynamics. It's a recording designed to play on FM and not kick in the limiter. And I can guarantee that the Sibelius recording would be audibly squashed by the limiter when a FM station plays it. I've spent more than enough time as a board op to know that sound. when the BIS CDs are played back in most homes, the quiet parts would be swallowed up by the background noises of one's home and neighborhood. I've owned/played those early BIS CDs, classical music needs a touch of compression to sound good in domestic environments.The top plot is Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" (quite good for pop-rock), bottom is Sibelius Violin Concerto (Kavakos, Sinfonia Lahti, Vänskä).
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tuga
Major Contributor
Modern BIS recordings still have a wide DR, as do recordings from most Classical music labels (attached).
Kantorow playing Balakirev's Islamey (piano solo).
RECORDING DATA
Recording: April 2016 at Studio 4'33", Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Producer and sound engineer: Jens Braun (Take5 Music Production)
Piano technician: Pierre Malbos
Equipment: BIS’s recording teams use microphones from Neumann and Schoeps, audio electronics from RME, Lake People and DirectOut, MADI optical cabling technology, monitoring equipment from B&W, STAX and Sennheiser, and Sequoia and Pyramix digital audio workstations.
Original format: 24-bit / 96 kHz
Robin L
Master Contributor
There's "wide dynamic range" and then there's recordings without any dynamic compensation. And there are modern orchestra recordings, Riccardo Chailly's Beethoven Symphony set comes to mind, that have a useful level of compression.Modern BIS recordings still have a wide DR, as do recordings from most Classical music labels (attached).
Kantorow playing Balakirev's Islamey (piano solo).
RECORDING DATA
Recording: April 2016 at Studio 4'33", Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Producer and sound engineer: Jens Braun (Take5 Music Production)
Piano technician: Pierre Malbos
Equipment: BIS’s recording teams use microphones from Neumann and Schoeps, audio electronics from RME, Lake People and DirectOut, MADI optical cabling technology, monitoring equipment from B&W, STAX and Sennheiser, and Sequoia and Pyramix digital audio workstations.
Original format: 24-bit / 96 kHz
Classical Music demands a high DR of at least 16dB (maybe 14dB absolute minimum). If you compress it, the very quiet passages become equal to the very loud passages, which is not true to the style of the music. The best way to listen to Classical Music is either with headphones &/or a perfectly settup & quiet listening room. I cannot imagine anyone trying to listen to Classical Music in their car, as it's just not a workable environment for the style of music (I myself do not listen to classical music, but I have mixed & mastered many recordings).
EDIT: You also have to remember that the more compression or limiting you use, the more distortion you're adding. The unwanted distortion might be fine for Rock, but it's really a thing to avoid in Classical Music. This is also one of the main reason that so-called Hi-Res recordings sound better. It has nothing to do with the higher available frequencies that you can't hear anyway, it's to do with how the files are processed (or more to the point, not processed).
EDIT: You also have to remember that the more compression or limiting you use, the more distortion you're adding. The unwanted distortion might be fine for Rock, but it's really a thing to avoid in Classical Music. This is also one of the main reason that so-called Hi-Res recordings sound better. It has nothing to do with the higher available frequencies that you can't hear anyway, it's to do with how the files are processed (or more to the point, not processed).
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Why is that? I don't want distortion added to any music I play, rock, blues, country, whatever.
No genre of music is more deserving of accurate playback than any other.
Why?
Agreed. There could be a lot of reasons for that, depends how it was recorded ect ect
