IS there a preferred level of compression in recordings?

[Blumlein 88]

https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Dynamic_Range_Control_of_Digital_Audio_Signal

You can download for free a PDF of an AES paper from 2014 which tested preference for 7 different levels of compression/limiting using several genre's of music. One of the choices was no compression.

 

[TBone]

I don't much like being SCREAMED at while enjoying music ... so for me (and my system), we prefer the least compressed versions possible.

Thanks for the link, very interesting read ...

"Designed to achieve the loudest sounding music product, hyper-compression pushed the physical limitations of digital media in a never-ending quest for ‘loudness’. Once one artist had reached a new level of ‘loudness’, all others had to follow so when comparisons where made between recordings, one was seen as softer and in a sense ‘inferior’ [3]. A chain of events unfolded and there was seemingly no way of reversing the trend [9]. Many adverse effects from the hyper-compression process have been extensively reported in studies [2][10][11][12]. These include consequences such as distortion, the atrophy of musicality, listener fatigue. Could this lead to a significant movement against the practice worldwide?"

 

[amirm]

Interesting study. I had not seen it before. I will put it on my Digest list .

 

[RayDunzl]

I took a file, and amplified it by a couple of hundred dB.

Every zero crossing goes on to the limit up or down. Just to see 'worst case'.

It's still recognizable, though the fidelity exhibits some impairment.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I took a file, and amplified it by a couple of hundred dB.

Every zero crossing goes on to the limit up or down. Just to see 'worst case'.

It's still recognizable, though the fidelity exhibits some impairment.

That would be a version of a hard limiter.

Of course Metallica on Death Magnetic did not stop with such minor processing as you describe here.