I have spent a fair amount of time chasing around "the best" versions of some of my older favorite music including LP, CD, SACD, DVD-A, and Hi-Res downloads. I look at the wave forms, DR Meter, and Lufs level and try to corelate that to what I hear. I absolutely agree that the audible differences of compression are MUCH less apparent than what you "see" in the wave forms or DR Meter or Lufs. However even though the differences are subtle I will almost always prefer the less compressed version and since this is a "Hi-Fi" site there is no doubt that information is "thrown away" during compression so the compressed versions are by definition "lower-Fi". To me it seems this loudness war started as a way to "stand out" but has now become a "style" that is now expected for all music new or re-mastered. A perfect example to me is the new Adele 30 album. This is the loudest album I have ever heard and the waveform and measurements confirm this yet listening to it you can not hear any distortion and it just sounds clear, clean, and loud. Contrast this to "Portrait of Shelia" recorded in 1963 with equipment with orders of magnitude more noise and distortion (some of which is clearly audible) but where the style of the day was to capture and preserve the dynamics of the music as best they could. I prefer this earlier style of recording despite it's obvious shortcomings. While all this is "subtle", recording and mastering and re-mastering styles have a much larger impact on what you hear than the difference between 60 SINAD and 120 SINAD.
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