Loudness compression, loudness wars.. What exactly it is and why is it happening?

[levimax]

Levimax, where are you seeing bass boost on CD vs LP on that graph of 'Clap' (not 'The Clap')? I can make out just a small boost in the CD at around 200Hz, while the LP is bassier at 100 Hz. Ditto treble. No doubt they would pop out more if it was a difference graph but i think the 'big ' difference in the midrange (where LP levels are notably higher between 1kHz and 2 k, actually starting all the down at 300Hz) would be far more noticeable.

I also wonder how LP measurements factor out the contribution of the cart/TT. CD players have no analogous contribution to make (and are entirely moot if the data are from a rip)

Since I "level match" the two samples before I compare them it can become semantics, I could have said a "mid range cut" which is the same thing as "bass and treble boost" when level matched. I agree though the 300 Hz to 4000 Hz range is the big difference and it is lower on the CD than on the LP and because it is low Q and right in the sensitive hearing range you can hear the difference.

While it is easy to say there are huge differences between TT and carts and you can't reliably compare CD's and LP's I have to disagree a little bit. If you use a TT set up/ Cart that is known to be fairly flat (Technics and Denon 103R in this case) and test it with a test records to verify it is amazing how close some CD's and LP's sound and measure. It is also amazing how different some mastering are.

 

[rdenney]

The early, pre loudness wars CD is 99% certainly more measurably dynamic than any LP version, simply by virtue of higher noise on the LPs. Noise limits dynamic range at the 'soft' end. Whether that matters to the perception, is another story.

Really, you are simply pointing out mastering choices, including choices of source tape, and then folding in LP effects. And relying on purely subjective impressions and memory.

Sorry I didn't choose an example that proved your point, not that I was particularly disagreeing with you. I would prefer not to argue about it--I'm new here and I've had a bad week.

I'm interested in accurate impressions, but I don't confuse accuracy and precision. My perceptions may have many causes, but they are what they are. The memory is fresh enough to be clear, and the comparison was made specifically because I thought the LP version I had lacked dynamics and found an early CD to see if it had more. Yes, the noise may be higher on the LP, but I wasn't comparing noise threshold sounds with peaks, I was comparing peaks versus general loudness in one medium versus the other. The difference was not large for Six Wives. The difference I noted between Criminal Record versions was much more noticeable.

There is a thread here that is as unscientific as depending solely on subjective impressions, and that's depending solely on measurements. My observations are certainly anecdotal and qualitative. They are not quantitative nor do they compare populations of each of the choices to filter out anomalous causes such as my LP being damaged by too much play. But they are observations nonetheless, and should be taken at face value--not a model that can be applied to others but still observations that deserve to be explored. As I said, I'm not in the correct city at the moment to take it further. If others don't notice the same thing, that is further interesting data. Assertions are not data.

Rick "an engineer with 40 years of research experience, and a musician with 50 years of ear training" Denney

 

[EJ3]

It's the low-level noises off that fool the ear into thinking there's more stereo going on than was recorded at the session. Also, acoustic feedback. But it's the IGD that ultimately make them sound like shit.

I don't hear any IGD on my main TT. Is that because it has a computer controlled servo linier tracking tone arm?
Sometimes I do hear it on my other TT which has a pivoting tone arm.

 

[brimble]

Relayer is perhaps their best album. (And it's the only album they did in the 70s that Wakeman wasn't on)

I've always been disposed to like Relayer because I've always been a Moraz fan, but for Relayer specifically, the key to understanding it, for me, was to realise that Alan White is having a phase of being experimental to the point of (in many places) not emphasising the beat. Of course the others are keeping the beat just fine without him; I just have to listen to it with that in mind in order for it to make sense.

 

[Robin L]

I don't hear any IGD on my main TT. Is that because it has a computer controlled servo linier tracking tone arm?
Sometimes I do hear it on my other TT which has a pivoting tone arm.

I'm not talking about IGD [and if you can't hear IGD on your turntable, you're a better man than I*]. I'm talking about the combination of pre/post echo, little clicks and pops, low-level wow and flutter that goes back to the mastering stage, crosstalk, things that could blur and spread sound.

*I owned a linear tracking turntable, it had the finest resolution of baked-in IGD I've ever heard. Which is to say, it didn't make it go away.

 

[brimble]

Since you asked...

That is SO helpful! Thank you very much indeed!

And absolutely perfect for me, because I care about this almost but not quite enough to trawl through all the options myself. (In each case I've heard the original LP and one or two but not all of the CD remasters and the Wilson version.) I will try to get all the versions you recommend there.

 

[brimble]

For the live Yesshows you're forever stuck with Chris Squire's dry, amusingly bass- and drum-heavy mix (the band was appalled).

Bruford told/tells the story of Eddie Offord and Chris Squire mixing one of the early albums (I think it was The Yes Album?) while Squire was wearing really bad headphones and insisting repeatedly that Offord keep turning the bass up and up and up.

 

[EJ3]

I'm not talking about IGD [and if you can't hear IGD on your turntable, you're a better man than I*]. I'm talking about the combination of pre/post echo, little clicks and pops, low-level wow and flutter that goes back to the mastering stage, crosstalk, things that could blur and spread sound.

*I owned a linear tracking turntable, it had the finest resolution of baked-in IGD I've ever heard. Which is to say, it didn't make it go away.

Thank you for clarifying. I was thinking of what is caused by the change of the tone arm angle and the difference in the spiral of information due to the space limitations of the inside grooves of the LP.
I have very few plays on any of my LP's (they were wet cleaned out of the sleeve and put into new archive sleeves). And the music was transferred to tape with a high quality cassette deck, RTR or both). Now I am slowly heading in the direction to do this again except the transfer will be to digital. (And transfer my CD's). As far as LP's & TT's are concerned, I am not willing to spend any more money than is invested (or thrown away in, depending on perspective) my mother's DUAL 1229 or my Technics SL-M3 as sources. Once the digital transfers are made then I guess the TT's will become eye candy. Some of my stuff is as far back as 78's from 1927. The less that I handle it, the better off it will be.

 

[krabapple]

Bruford told/tells the story of Eddie Offord and Chris Squire mixing one of the early albums (I think it was The Yes Album?) while Squire was wearing really bad headphones and insisting repeatedly that Offord keep turning the bass up and up and up.

On Time And A Word, producer Tony Colton demanded that the bass be turned up because he couldn't hear it well on his crummy headphones. Eddy Offord obliged. Chris Squire later jokingly referred to that as contributing to 'my personal success!' in Dan Hedges's Yes biography from 1981. I don't recall the Yes Album anecdote you cite but it's been a few years since I read Bruford's book.

 

[krabapple]

Yes, the noise may be higher on the LP, but I wasn't comparing noise threshold sounds with peaks, I was comparing peaks versus general loudness in one medium versus the other. The difference was not large for Six Wives. The difference I noted between Criminal Record versions was much more noticeable.

And, assuming it's a real thing that could be verified with measurements, it could simply be due to there being more bass on the CD version. Which might actually reflect the master recording better, or might be an EQ move. Without knowledge of source tapes, and mastering processes, it's impossible to know for sure.

It is not likely a matter of digital dynamic range compression. That wasn't common practice for Japanese CDs in that era. Nor is it born out by the waveforms of the first Japanese CD (which I have, as well as the vintage LP).

 

[brimble]

On Time And A Word, producer Tony Colton demanded that the bass be turned up because he couldn't hear it well on his crummy headphones. Eddy Offord obliged. Chris Squire later jokingly referred to that as contributing to 'my personal success!' in Dan Hedges's Yes biography from 1981. I don't recall the Yes Album anecdote you cite but it's been a few years since I read Bruford's book.

I was almost certainly mis-remembering the same event. I got my version from Bruford, but my memory for the details sucks so there's no reason to think that Bruford tells it any differently from Colton.

 

[krabapple]

I was almost certainly mis-remembering the same event. I got my version from Bruford, but my memory for the details sucks so there's no reason to think that Bruford tells it any differently from Colton.

Colton didn't tell the story, Chris Squire did.

 

[Prep74]

I don't hear any IGD on my main TT. Is that because it has a computer controlled servo linier tracking tone arm?
Sometimes I do hear it on my other TT which has a pivoting tone arm.

As posted by @Robin L It can never be really avoided, just minimised. Even a linear tracking arm has geometrical issues due to the curvature of the disk it is tracking and in any event, some IGD is there from the cutting head during production. A long time ago I had a lineal laser turntable and some IGD could be heard, though it varied by LP. I guess some are just more sensitive to this type of distortion.

 

[Prep74]

While it is easy to say there are huge differences between TT and carts and you can't reliably compare CD's and LP's I have to disagree a little bit. If you use a TT set up/ Cart that is known to be fairly flat (Technics and Denon 103R in this case) and test it with a test records to verify it is amazing how close some CD's and LP's sound and measure. It is also amazing how different some mastering are.

I agree. My TT/phono combo measures quite flat. When I compare Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon's 1983 Sony mastered CD with the 1978 Japan Pro Use LP they sound remarkably similar. They both were produced from the same 15 ips production master.