TBone
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LOL ... thx ... great justification for the rest of my madonna, maria and britney (sadly 1 demo LP) "collections" .Weren't you part of the Columbia House "club"?
LOL ... thx ... great justification for the rest of my madonna, maria and britney (sadly 1 demo LP) "collections" .Weren't you part of the Columbia House "club"?
Mariah is actually a pretty good singer when she remembers the words!LOL ... thx ... great justification for the rest of my madonna, maria and britney (sadly 1 demo LP) "collections" .
perhaps, or maybe it just music porn 4 this shallow soul ......Mariah is actually a pretty good singer when she remembers the words!
I didn't have that exact model but something similar. You are making my point for me without realizing it. What you are call an "actual standalone receiver... and two actual speakers on stands" was something that maybe only 1% of the population (at that time) could afford.
If you wanted to sell CDs to the 99%, you had to make them sound good in equipment that approximated the device pictured above. And that meant compressed dynamic range all very near 0dB because the DACs could only produce something tolerable for -10dB to 0dB. Anything quieter than that came out as noise.
In 1998, the DM-3 cost about US$600 which was about median weekly income in the US.
There weren't 300k people in the US at the time who could afford an "actual standalone receiver."
Maybe where you were -- but all my friends --early twenty-somethings, all firmly middle class with working class parents, all rock music fans, not wealthy ...had them. It was at all not unusual in the USA in the 1980s, and I seriously doubt only 1% of the adult population possessed what was considered a totally normal 'stereo system' at the time.
Sorry, but that's simply wasn't true, until the *1990s*, when 1) digital compression came into use and 2) portable players and headphones were the rage. (Prior to that we did have portable 'Walkman' cassette players and headphones, but that did not spark a loudness war because the digital technology did not exist)
By 1998 there were absolutely many cheaper options than that.
You are so wrong it's funny. How much do you think a basic mass market receiver cost back then? They weren't AVRs, they weren't feature loaded. A preamp and an amp and a tuner in one. Volume, bass end treble tone controls , balance, and maybe a 'loudness' button is what you got. Connectivity for a pair of speakers , a cassette deck, a turntable, and 'aux' (and later ..'CD').
Man, I lived through it. I even sold gear at a 'Best Buy' type discount electronics store in NYC (Crazy Eddie!) for a few months in the mid '80s. You could buy a 'stereo' at Sears, Kmart too.... The cost of CD players was initially high, but came down rapidly. You certainly didn't have to be rich.
CD for several years was NOT compressed at all. Not sure what you mean. It had nothing to do WITH CD, but simply studio technology and remasters, which were still a ways off, more like in the late 90s timeframe.I didn't have that exact model but something similar. You are making my point for me without realizing it. What you are call an "actual standalone receiver... and two actual speakers on stands" was something that maybe only 1% of the population (at that time) could afford.
If you wanted to sell CDs to the 99%, you had to make them sound good in equipment that approximated the device pictured above. And that meant compressed dynamic range all very near 0dB because the DACs could only produce something tolerable for -10dB to 0dB. Anything quieter than that came out as noise.
In 1998, the DM-3 cost about US$600 which was about median weekly income in the US.
There weren't 300k people in the US at the time who could afford an "actual standalone receiver." "Ray of Light" sold 300k copies the first week. That wouldn't have happened if you needed $1k of equipment to play it! Rock/Pop had to be mastered such that it would play well on equipment that cost $200-$300
This is incorrect. In fact, the very first commercial CD player (Sony CDP-101) made use of the CX20017, which exhibited a noise floor of about -90dB. Subsequent hardware performed quite similarlyI'm not saying that other factors didn't come into play. But DACs were *very* weak back then. 8x oversampling was the marketing buzz. You couldn't tell with those noise floors.
I'm not saying that other factors didn't come into play. But DACs were *very* weak back then. 8x oversampling was the marketing buzz. You couldn't tell with those noise floors.
I really enjoyed the wide dynamic range of the recent Dune movie. For me, it added a whole new dimension to the experience, unlike most movies and music that are dynamically squashed. Each to his own!Films & DR.
Friends and family watched Dune and The Green Knight a few weeks back. Oled, 4k, decent sound system. Great films, but everyone was exhausted by straining to hear quiet conversations and seconds later being deafened. ... Possibly a major reason for me playing so little classical these days; just too tedious making sure my clothes don't creak or squeak in the quiet bits. ...
Is there any way to buy a full-fledged Music Tester app?Luck is good, but it's possible to measure your tracks as well. However, allow me to start from the pedantic side. We should try to distinguish between content and the reproduction system. "Dynamic range" could be reserved for the latter: A ratio expressing the highest level (magnitude) vs the lowest level a system conveys.
To reduce ambiguity, use a different terminology about the content, like we say "height" about an object and "clearance" about where the object might fit. Peak-to-Loudness Ratio (PLR) is a defined way of expressing micro-dynamics (squashing) in music, and it also relates to peak level vs average level, rather than peak vs noise floor.
To measure your own tracks, visit http://musictester.net/demo and drag files (WAV, AIFF, AAC, MP3 etc.) into the window. One or more tracks may be compared (and listened to) side by side, see attached. It's free to use, and the four columns measure the parameters specified. "PLS" means Peak-to-Loudness Short-term, based on the most squashed 10 secs of the track (black line in the histogram). By switching "Normalization" to "Loudness", you can listen to music at equal Loudness, e.g. two different versions of the same track.
Is there any way to buy a full-fledged Music Tester app?
He says that the first version is -11 LUFS and the second -6 LUFS, but after downloading the youtube stream and cutting 1:22-length parts from 32:28 and from 34:10 I get:I found followig video pretty instresting, even though I am not into electronic music.
Loudness, LRA
-17.2 LUFS, 4.6 LU, b1.flac
-17.0 LUFS, 4.1 LU, b2.flac
Loudness, LRA
-12.6 LUFS, 4.6 LU, c1.flac
-9.4 LUFS, 4.1 LU, c2.flac
He says that the first version is -11 LUFS and the second -6 LUFS, but after downloading the youtube stream and cutting 1:22-length parts from 32:28 and from 34:10 I get:
And after normalizing to 0 dBFS:Code:Loudness, LRA -17.2 LUFS, 4.6 LU, b1.flac -17.0 LUFS, 4.1 LU, b2.flac
Code:Loudness, LRA -12.6 LUFS, 4.6 LU, c1.flac -9.4 LUFS, 4.1 LU, c2.flac
actualy it doesn't matter for radio, since radio stations aditionaly compress the hell out of everything
Do we have any advice on what to look for when buying?
1. Shall we just buy very old cds from the time that loudness war was not an issue?
2. How do we buy a new cd these days ?