Loudness, Unabated

Having recently upgraded my audio system(s) -- and taking on, as a fresh empty-nester, a project to optimize the entirety of my music collection and digital playback scenario -- I have been revisiting old music. And, now that I have brought my turntable out of mothballs and integrated it into the new upstairs system, I am often shocked at how much better vinyl sounds than many recent CDs. And how much better older CDs can sound than newer CDs. I am really becoming wary of remasterings, even ones that purport to be digital remasters to high-resolution 24-bit lossless files. Chalk this all up to the "Loudness Wars", which is exposed and tracked by sites like TurnMeUp.org. For an illustration, watch this:



To help disclose the reality here, I am using a plug-in component for my favored (at his particular time) digital player for Windows, Foobar2000. The component is the Dynamic Range Meter (I downloaded mine from the author's site at http://www.dynamicrange.de/de/free-downloads). The software is based on work done by the Pleasurize Music Foundation. This thing measures a DNR value, or the decibel range in a digital music file. Pleasurize believes most everything should have a value of 12 to 14, and that something as low as a value of 3 is flat unacceptable.

With my newer equipment and optimizations (software tweaking included), lousy sonics of source material are now more apparent, and I am running Foobar2000 with the Dynamic Range Meter on suspect files, eventually intending testing all my digital collection (this will definitely take a while to get through everything). Sure enough, digital files that don't sound that great often turn out to have been ripped from "modern" CDs and display low DNR values. Thankfully, most classical and jazz albums I have tested so far are not so bad; the worst offenders are rock, pop, and re-issue compilations.

This appalling situation is driving me down a path of (a) buying only vinyl music from here on out, or (b) downloading only audiophile-acceptable high-res digital files from appropriate sources*, or (c) both. And probably working out how to make truly high-quality vinyl rips of my own.

* I have purchased good 16-bit and 24-bit music from the B&W Society of Sound and directly from some artist sites. I have also downloaded music from HDTracks with good results, but some audiophile forums warn against some HDTracks remasterings. I will be exploring these and more sites in the future and will keep you apprised.