The Loudness War: Why Your CD's Sound Quality Sucks

1. Xinavera
   August 8th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

   Interesting, and makes a lot of sense. Any idea of this holds true to mp3 downloads as well? I.e., do they make the master mp3 files (or AAC or whatever) from the studio masters or from the production disks? Does it make a difference.

   Also, RECORDING INDUSTRY PIGDOGS!!!

2. Public Relations Pro
   August 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

   As long as the general pubic demands this sound - it does not matter what the audiophiles think.

   There is pressure for ROI and intense competition for buyers - especially nowadays with illegal downloading becoming so popular

3. Jimbalaya
   August 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

   It seems cost ineffective to have two routes for the finished product to take - it's more likely that, at the last possible moment, they either put it on record, cd, or mp3...

   You could fire up Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) and have a look at your mp3 collection ... The "2000" image above will be closest to the overly loud mp3. You might even find BLOCKS of audio wavform, where it's clipped so bad that the top & bottom of the image (the wavform) are flat lines.

   It's also a big factor in why, if you listen to this music for a while (even at relatively OK volume levels), your ears get tired and you need to turn off the music for a while in order to recover...

4. A.L.
   August 8th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

   Yeah, this has been going on for a while, partially to suit the earbud generation. It sucks tremendously.

   It should be noted, however, that it's not generally the recording engineer's fault... the 'loudening' happens at the hands of the mastering engineer who probably knows better himself but, y'know, wants to get paid by the label and keep getting work.

   Somewhere on a hard drive the awesome unsullied mixes pre-mastering are hiding and we'll never hear them.

   I'm sure 99.9% of legit online distro releases use the same mastering. AACs and MP3s are plenty shittier than CD quality anyway. A drag since as far as digital audio goes CDs were already outdated on release. Regressing instead of progressing.

   Not that I don't like/love the convenience of having all my music on a hard drive jukebox-style, but man, a well-recorded piece of music at 196kHz 24bit (the likes of which they might record at in a contemporary studio) is really something to hear.

5. Ladyfingers
   August 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

   Holy crap, I'm on Neatorama!

6. Ladyfingers
   August 8th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

   Incidentally, DVD now has the opposite problem. Dialogue is recorded increasingly softly so that explosions and gunfire jump out of the mix.

   What's interesting about that situation is that unlike CD dynamic range compression which can NEVER be fixed, it can be controlled by the user. Most DVD players have a dynamic range limiter (usually called "night viewing" or similar) so that people can watch comfortably without upsetting the neighbours.

   If they'd only thought to implement this on CD and MP3 players, there'd be no need for compression. ReplayGain is an attempt, but it has few corporate backers.

7. Neatoramawontletmepost
   August 8th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

   Louder is not better. If people want to listen to loud noise, they should just rent a jackhammer. Music shouldn't lose its nuances just so some future hearing-aid customers can show off how loud their stereo can go.

   I haven't bought a CD in months (or it may be over a year). I've noticed that the music seems to be drowning out the vocals on the last few CDs I've bought. I don't know if that's part of this issue or something else.

   @ Ladyfingers: I thought that DVD issue was just our DVD player! I hate having to turn up the movie to hear the dialogue, because I end up nearly wetting myself when music or a sudden sound effect comes along.

8. JamesM
   August 8th, 2008 at 9:23 pm

   Compression and bad mastering. The last ditch effort of the record studios to convince you that a song sounds better simply because it sounds louder and you can "hear more"... nevermind that dynamic range has been completely obliterated (no valleys in between the peaks, usually drum kicks)

   I pretty much stopped buying CDs as a result of this. It gets weird, though.

   Labels started adding compression so their song sounds "louder" on the radio. As compression became more aggressive, it actually had the opposite effect. Since radio stations already compress their output for maximum fidelity over broadcast, if a song is TOO compressed, its average volume actually causes the radio station's own compressors to DROP the levels.

   Then there's the whole "remastering" issue. Most of the time remasters imply that a recording was cleaned up of artifacts on old tapes (hiss, dropouts, etc) and then mastered digitally for CDs. Now it pretty much means taking the old recording, compressing each track individually and remerging it into a heavily compressed mix. The problem? The process actually changed the dynamics of the original mix. Sure. It's louder. Sure. You hear everything... but equally. There's no subtle details anymore. Everything is right there, blasting into your ear as loud as everything else.

   As a result, I tend to buy what I really want, if it's available on Vinyl... and then record it myself digitally through my sound equipment. I can have a copy of the recording that HAS to adhere to strict mastering standards (The RIAA Curve, EQ curve for mastering to Vinyl. The only thing the RIAA was ever good for.) or the needle would literally fly out of the grooves of the record.

   Here's where it gets really weird.

   Now that it is common practice for labels to encode, from masters, MP3s and such for iTunes...

   I'll rip a track from CD. It's overcompressed and hard limited, if not, then it clips on the disc itself. (A major no-no, having a source where the signal exceeds the capabilities of the medium. The signal at 0db is essentially all frequencies at maximum volume, white noise.)

   But I've downloaded from band websites, the MP3 tracks of the same recording (before I bought the CD)... and before I copy it to my MP3 player, I run a replay gain adjustment application. A lot of tracks drop by more than 9db because the average volume was so loud.

   Loaded up the CD rip into an audio editor program. The waveforms were damaged and chopped off (flattened at 0db).

   Loaded up the MP3 that went through the replay gain (a good example is UNKLE's War Stories album).. and uhm...

   Where there was flattened peaks on the CD... there was natural peaks on an MP3 where the volume was lowered in the MP3 headers for playback loudness. However, the source was EXTREMELY COMPRESSED, so it was still a bit hard to listen to with the constant volume sonic attack on the eardrums.

   Loaded up the non-replay gained MP3 copy... Flattened, damaged peaks.

   In the end, an inferior product (buyable MP3s) actually ends up having an advantage to the physical medium.

   Responsible audio mastering essentially died around 1997-1998. Everything after has been an exercise in making everything progressively unlistenable.

   BRING BACK THE DYNAMIC RANGE!

9. sparge
   August 9th, 2008 at 1:46 am

   I do not consider myself an audiophile.

   A couple of years back, I started listening more and more to indie music, despite my previous aversions to it (primarily because of a radio station called The Current, but that's a story for another time). Nowadays, I find commercial radio unlistenable, and I never quite understood why until now. I had heard of the dynamic range loss phenomenon before but hadn't put 2 and 2 together until now.

   It puzzled me, since there's a wide spread of instrumental talent in both the mainstream and indie scenes, and I would say more vocal talent in mainstream music. I don't usually pay to much attention to the lyrics, so that wasn't the problem either. Plus, I had never been a big fan of the lo-fi sound (I still prefer a well-polished sound). But now I know.

10. JC
    August 9th, 2008 at 1:54 am

    That´s why I´ve never failed you, holy piracy.

11. Mayor of Kentonville
    August 9th, 2008 at 7:15 am

    And I thought it was me...............thank you, I feel like I am no longer alone

12. Love
    August 9th, 2008 at 9:25 am

    A good case in point is comparing the re-mastered release of Forever Changes by Love to the original CD release of it. The re-mastered one sounds like every instrument is turned up full and the whole album looses most of it's dynamics. The original cd release sounds like the original vinyl release but clearer, the re-mastered one sounds like a demo tape in comparison.

13. Thomas
    August 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am

    And that's why they don't deserve my money.

14. semi
    August 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    This problem has nothing to do with CDs. It's simply the application of dynamic compression in mastering. And if you think this hasn't been done for ages, you are wrong. The tools have simply become more sophisticated. The Beatles early songs were designed to cut through the noise and limited range on AM radio.

    Most music audio today is designed to be played back in high ambient noise environments, such as the car, or on a computer, or radio. That's what is driving artists and engineers to apply more dynamic compression on top-selling pop, rock, or rap titles.

    If you hate the sound of dynamically compressed audio, there are thousands of CD releases every year that are beautifully recorded and mastered, but most of them are jazz, classical, or alternative.

    The Top 40 is the lowest common denominator of the music industry; you have to look beyond that if you want to discover gems.

    And to all of you who think that just because you don't like the mastering or the music that this gives you the right to steal it, that's just a pathetic rationalization.

15. Ladyfingers
    August 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    Compression should occur on the user end. Compression used to be offered on car CD players, and it did a perfectly good job of commpensating for background noise. Now we have a format with 96dB or so of potential dynamic range using maybe 5dB and no reason to buy proper hi-fi for modern records.

    Many artists and engineers do not do this to records, it's the marketing side.

    The reason for not paying (and in my opinion a download is not theft if there was no chance of the record being otherwise bought) is to not reward and thereby encourage bad practice. I buy all the music I like on CD so that I get to keep it at the highest possible quality. I will not pay for lousy mastering and non-Red Book "copy controlled" discs.

16. JamesM
    August 9th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    @Ladyfingers: "Compression should occur on the user end. Compression used to be offered on car CD players, and it did a perfectly good job of commpensating for background noise. Now we have a format with 96dB or so of potential dynamic range using maybe 5dB and no reason to buy proper hi-fi for modern records."

    The worst album I've found was one that I mentioned before. Uncle's "War Stories" album. The dynamic range, one song for example: Burn My Shadow, never goes beyond 2db in any given part of the song. There's a quieter section with a range of 2db and a loud section with a range of about 2db. Between the two, it might be 10db-ish, but within the sections themselves... You're watching a VU meter that never moves.

    Great album, but horrible to listen to.

    You're absolutely right about the user side of things. Compression should happen with the user's equipment, giving them a CHOICE to listen to it that way if they want to.

    As-is? With a horribly crunched signal on the disc itself, you're stuck with the signal as it is presented. Garbage in, garbage out.

    ReplayGain is a hack, but it oddly does the trick. Give the user the option. Unfortunately, ReplayGain, while it does balance out the overall volume across multiple tracks... it doesn't do a thing about the actual amount of compression used on the track itself. The signal is still ruined.

    ReplayGain on an album from 1988: Erasure: The Innocents. +8db average increase.

    ReplayGain on an album from last year: Erasure: The Light at the End of the World: -6db average decrease.

    A difference of 14db just to EVEN OUT the loudness of the two albums. Ouch. Their album from 1991: Chorus, is an example of what I would say was the best mastering job for CD. That's the benchmark I use for everything I master myself.

    @semi: "This problem has nothing to do with CDs. It’s simply the application of dynamic compression in mastering. And if you think this hasn’t been done for ages, you are wrong. The tools have simply become more sophisticated. The Beatles early songs were designed to cut through the noise and limited range on AM radio."

    Good point, however, it should be noted that if you were to attempt to do the same compression/lack of dynamic range tricks that appear on CD now... but on tape or vinyl, the medium simply couldn't handle it. Tapes would saturate to the point to where fidelity is lost. Vinyl would have an issue with the needle flying out of the grooves.

    Vinyl has strict mastering rules (due to the physics of a lightly weighted needle dragging in a groove) and if you break those rules... you have an unplayable record.

    CDs, unfortunately, help to enable the crunch/loudness war through a signal that is a strict digital read. It doesn't vary and sound in/sound out is the same regardless of how loud it's mastered onto the disc itself. The only limit that a CD has for loudness is the hard clip of 0db... whereas analogue formats have a bit of headroom. Solution? Compress the hell out of it despite the fact that a CD has a much wider dynamic range (~96db "noise" floor) than tape (approx 40-50db hiss noise floor) or vinyl (about the same, depending on the quality/usedness of the record, but rumble through vinyl drag, I've seen it as bad as 30db for vinyl and 20-30db for multiple generation tape copies.)

    Instead of taking advantage of the dynamic range capabilities of the compact disc format, they've decided to obliterate it... all in the name of marketing.

    @ Love: "A good case in point is comparing the re-mastered release of Forever Changes by Love to the original CD release of it. The re-mastered one sounds like every instrument is turned up full and the whole album looses most of it’s dynamics. The original cd release sounds like the original vinyl release but clearer, the re-mastered one sounds like a demo tape in comparison."

    This is a perfect example of the issue with the current process of remastering. It actually made an artist's back catalogue sound worse, despite the "limitations" of using analogue tape masters and dumping it onto CD. The Erasure boxed set single releases, for example, ended up CHANGING the mix of nearly every single track apart from how it was originally released. Nice subtle echo/delay effects on vocals or instruments that were on the original release? Completely gone. Broke my heart as a collector.

17. Josh
    August 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm

    People buy CDs?

    It is a very rare occasion I will buy a CD. American CD that is. I have grown to hate American music more and more and if I buy a American artist's CD they must be damn good in my book.

    99% of music I buy on CD's come directly imported from Japan. I have not noticed any issues like the loudness on any of the artists CDs I have listened to. I will stick with artists like Ai Otsuka, YUI and Nami Tamaki. They destroy any American artist any day.

    I have listened to MP3s which have had a problem with loudness and would top out and produce nothing but muddy music plenty of times.

18. MW
    August 10th, 2008 at 2:31 am

    What's even worse is that Japanese CDs had far superior quality from the get-go than the US ones because in the US all they cared about was selling as many possible. If you compare CDs from the late 80's between the 2 countries, the difference is quite clear.

19. Ladyfingers
    August 10th, 2008 at 6:37 am

    I most certainly still buy CDs. I rip all my own MP3s to the so-called Uberstandard using Exact Audio Codec. I don't bother pinching off the web because the quality is usually disgraceful. With decent headphones the difference is far from subtle.

    I try and find issues from the early 90s or before, since most of them aren't afflicted. The first records I noticed the volume increase on were Dirt by Alice in Chains and Astro Creep 2000 by White Zombie. They're probably restrained by today's standards.

    As regards "determined by the marketplace": rubbish. Idiocracy has never been an excuse for idiocy.

    It's determined by marketing execs playing Joneses and asking why the sound on a pre-release master is so soft compared to all the other records in the playlist.

    "The market" has no idea about this, except for a tiny few who wonder why they always have to turn the volume on their receiver down when they play CDs or MP3s after watching DVDs or TV.

    To repeat myself, there is simply no reason to compress the audio in this manner, as it can compressed on the playback end. Our musical history is currently being destroyed by marketing goons.

    I recommend the following article: http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/loudness.htm

20. MoonCake
    August 10th, 2008 at 6:55 am

    JamesM is right, but I would like to add to it.. along with the whole remastering thing-- not only are they compressing the audio, but when you remaster something, you do not have the original tracks that layered into the mix, so you can't adjust their individual volume. as a producer myself, the most important part of my job is to make all the levels mix well, so no one is higher than the other. this is especially important when putting together commercials and promos. but music is the same thing, only you're TRYING to emphasize certain levels to get the dynamics of the music and the sound of the band itself. when you remaster it, you take away the dynamics in the sound and make everything a little more flat. that's why older music on vinyl was so much better, because they didn't do individual track processing. now they DO individual track processing, making the sound a little more diluted because it all runs together. that's the fall the music industry has taken as technology has swept our culture. it's true in all industries, though. once you saturate a market with technology, stores, and/or resources, you're giving people too many options, thus making it more difficult to get something simple and genuine. that's what we get, i guess.

21. Robroy
    November 26th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    Maybe this is why some home recordings I (and others) make sound better than commercial releases.

22. Dire straits fan
    March 24th, 2009 at 5:57 am

    I have a Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms [ remastered ] CD that i bougth from CDwow.com

    I can hear wierd sounds and the guitars sounds rustic

23. Dire straits fan
    March 24th, 2009 at 5:57 am

    It really sucks when you've been paying so much for your earphones and speakers.

    What can be done about it?

24. David J
    July 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    Dire Straits fan,

    (I like them too, BTW). I am a big audiophile, and I own several pairs of $200+ headphones. The loudness war has driven me insane. There are a few fixes I know of, neither of which is cost effective or easy:

    1. Buy older, un-re-mastered versions of your favorite CDs. Like you, I also own "Brothers in Arms," but mine is the non-re-mastered version. It might have some tape hiss in it (or other studio-induced limitations), but at least it doesn't sound terrible when things get loud.

    2. Go vinyl. This is pricey, but a decent turntable is surprisingly cheap - about $100 or so. People are starting to go back to vinyl these days for two reasons: the artwork, and/or to avoid the loudness war. The turntable technology has come a long way since I was a kid in the 70s - I never hear scratching anymore (plus I take care of my records). Many turntables, like those from Sony, come with built-in rippers to transform your vinyls to lossless or lossy computer files.

    If anybody else knows of any way around this, please post it!

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