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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 19, 2018 13:53:19 GMT -6
Yes, let's get back on topic without the negativity. I've read about this issue on the Steve Hoffman forums probably for over 15 years. One of the Oasis brothers claimed they tried to set new loudness records because it made stuff sound better on cheap boomboxes. Hearing a laptop next to me playing all kinds of modern remasters and newer albums via youtube, I suppose it would sound acceptable to the average person who doesn't mind listening on laptop speakers. Maybe mainstream loud releases are mastered to best suit the average frequency curves of the usual consumer playback equipment? I'm not a speakers person, so I can't get into a ton of specifics about what makes a great speaker experience. I think almost everything sounds awesome coming out of my JBL LSR305's, but I almost always listen or mix through K701 headphones+ID14 and reference on some $100 Bose speakers that hardly anything sounds great on. When I first got the Grado RS-1s about a decade ago, they seemed to really expose the worst of the loudness war stuff. Previously I tolerated loud cds through some Sony MDR-V600 headphones, but I was never thrilled with the sound overall. There might've been some things in my audio sources and amps that exposed the loudness problems too. An Arcam cd player, Darkvoice tube amp, and Heed Canamp. 80s cds were ideal for this stuff, but there was still some harshness. The RS-1 have some pretty decent colorations around 100, maybe 2000, and 10,000. Once I stumbled onto Nwavguy's site and tried supposedly neutral gear like the Sansa clip, a supposed clone of his Odac(which was meant to replicate Benchmark DAC-1 performance), and an O2 amp, I felt like loud albums were a little more tolerable. The K701 also tolerated loudness war albums better than the RS-1 even with the Arcam 73 feeding the Darkvoice or Heed through some Transparent Audio cables. But it would depend on the album. I know tube amps have some serious distortion and are high impedance if I recall. The neutral stuff has impedance close to or at 0. Ipod might be that way too. Id14 is like a 32.
It all leads me to think that it's not just pure loudness, but also the frequencies emphasized that makes it fatiguing. The newer the album, generally the worse I think it sounds. The gear/plugins used could be a factor too. I've just tried to find ways to make it easier to deal with. Given the almost religious devotion to this style, I don't see it changing anytime soon. It'll be up to the consumer's listening device to fix.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 19, 2018 15:25:06 GMT -6
Same here. John has had some incredibly invaluable info to share over the years, but as soon as I see the abusive language I just skip ahead. It just gets me angry and I don't need that. Have some temperance John, even when you are riled up. I think it would do a lot to improve the communities (online and off) of which you are a loved and important part. Peace from Paris too. Thanks.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 19, 2018 15:32:47 GMT -6
Yes, let's get back on topic without the negativity. I've read about this issue on the Steve Hoffman forums probably for over 15 years. One of the Oasis brothers claimed they tried to set new loudness records because it made stuff sound better on cheap boomboxes. Hearing a laptop next to me playing all kinds of modern remasters and newer albums via youtube, I suppose it would sound acceptable to the average person who doesn't mind listening on laptop speakers. Maybe mainstream loud releases are mastered to best suit the average frequency curves of the usual consumer playback equipment? I'm not a speakers person, so I can't get into a ton of specifics about what makes a great speaker experience. I think almost everything sounds awesome coming out of my JBL LSR305's, but I almost always listen or mix through K701 headphones+ID14 and reference on some $100 Bose speakers that hardly anything sounds great on. When I first got the Grado RS-1s about a decade ago, they seemed to really expose the worst of the loudness war stuff. Previously I tolerated loud cds through some Sony MDR-V600 headphones, but I was never thrilled with the sound overall. There might've been some things in my audio sources and amps that exposed the loudness problems too. An Arcam cd player, Darkvoice tube amp, and Heed Canamp. 80s cds were ideal for this stuff, but there was still some harshness. The RS-1 have some pretty decent colorations around 100, maybe 2000, and 10,000. Once I stumbled onto Nwavguy's site and tried supposedly neutral gear like the Sansa clip, a supposed clone of his Odac(which was meant to replicate Benchmark DAC-1 performance), and an O2 amp, I felt like loud albums were a little more tolerable. The K701 also tolerated loudness war albums better than the RS-1 even with the Arcam 73 feeding the Darkvoice or Heed through some Transparent Audio cables. But it would depend on the album. I know tube amps have some serious distortion and are high impedance if I recall. The neutral stuff has impedance close to or at 0. Ipod might be that way too. Id14 is like a 32. It all leads me to think that it's not just pure loudness, but also the frequencies emphasized that makes it fatiguing. The newer the album, generally the worse I think it sounds. The gear/plugins used could be a factor too. I've just tried to find ways to make it easier to deal with. Given the almost religious devotion to this style, I don't see it changing anytime soon. It'll be up to the consumer's listening device to fix. I agree with a lot of this aside from you reliance on phones, which I don't like in general, but that's a personal matter. I agree that it's not just the loudness. A lot of the drum EQ on modern records I find very distracting - I shouldn't be thinking about the kick and snare more than the song. I'd add to that that I think the way compression is being handled, not only in mastering but also in the mix stage really detracts from my enjoyment of a great deal of modern stuff and that it seems to be cross-genre, although the specific details tend to differ somewhat. About your comment on tube amps and distortion - Yes, most (but not all) tube amps have significantly higher stated specs for THD than SS amps but that's actually somewhat misleading, as the THD figure gives no idea of what the spectrum of the generated harmonics is. Tube amps tend to generate more even harmonics and lower harmonics than many solid state devices, particularly when pushed harder. Since tubes soft clip and transistors hard clip at the advent of distortion such clipping will be significantly more audible with an SS amp. It should also be noted that techiques for distortion measurement are not really standardized between manufacturers, so a direct comparison of paper figure can be misleading. I don't really see why the internal opperating im,pedance of an amplifier should be a consideraation, since by the time the signal is output it's transformed down to nominal impedance for the load. The output transformer does affect damping factor, but the subject of damping factor measurements are a topic for a whole other discussion. Let's just say the the DF stated in the specs ain't the same as the real world DF at the speaker.
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 19, 2018 16:13:53 GMT -6
Yes, let's get back on topic without the negativity. I've read about this issue on the Steve Hoffman forums probably for over 15 years. One of the Oasis brothers claimed they tried to set new loudness records because it made stuff sound better on cheap boomboxes. Hearing a laptop next to me playing all kinds of modern remasters and newer albums via youtube, I suppose it would sound acceptable to the average person who doesn't mind listening on laptop speakers. Maybe mainstream loud releases are mastered to best suit the average frequency curves of the usual consumer playback equipment? I'm not a speakers person, so I can't get into a ton of specifics about what makes a great speaker experience. I think almost everything sounds awesome coming out of my JBL LSR305's, but I almost always listen or mix through K701 headphones+ID14 and reference on some $100 Bose speakers that hardly anything sounds great on. When I first got the Grado RS-1s about a decade ago, they seemed to really expose the worst of the loudness war stuff. Previously I tolerated loud cds through some Sony MDR-V600 headphones, but I was never thrilled with the sound overall. There might've been some things in my audio sources and amps that exposed the loudness problems too. An Arcam cd player, Darkvoice tube amp, and Heed Canamp. 80s cds were ideal for this stuff, but there was still some harshness. The RS-1 have some pretty decent colorations around 100, maybe 2000, and 10,000. Once I stumbled onto Nwavguy's site and tried supposedly neutral gear like the Sansa clip, a supposed clone of his Odac(which was meant to replicate Benchmark DAC-1 performance), and an O2 amp, I felt like loud albums were a little more tolerable. The K701 also tolerated loudness war albums better than the RS-1 even with the Arcam 73 feeding the Darkvoice or Heed through some Transparent Audio cables. But it would depend on the album. I know tube amps have some serious distortion and are high impedance if I recall. The neutral stuff has impedance close to or at 0. Ipod might be that way too. Id14 is like a 32. It all leads me to think that it's not just pure loudness, but also the frequencies emphasized that makes it fatiguing. The newer the album, generally the worse I think it sounds. The gear/plugins used could be a factor too. I've just tried to find ways to make it easier to deal with. Given the almost religious devotion to this style, I don't see it changing anytime soon. It'll be up to the consumer's listening device to fix. I agree with a lot of this aside from you reliance on phones, which I don't like in general, but that's a personal matter. I agree that it's not just the loudness. A lot of the drum EQ on modern records I find very distracting - I shouldn't be thinking about the kick and snare more than the song. I'd add to that that I think the way compression is being handled, not only in mastering but also in the mix stage really detracts from my enjoyment of a great deal of modern stuff and that it seems to be cross-genre, although the specific details tend to differ somewhat. About your comment on tube amps and distortion - Yes, most (but not all) tube amps have significantly higher stated specs for THD than SS amps but that's actually somewhat misleading, asw thye THD figure gives no ideaq of what the spectrum of the generated harmonics is. Tube amps tend to generate more even harmonics and lower harmonics than many solid state devices, particularly when pushed harder. Since tubes soft clip and transistors hard clip at the advent of distortion such clipping will be significantly more audible with an SS amp. It should also be noted that techiques for distortion measurement are not really standardized between manufacturers, so a direct comparison of paper figure can be misleading. I do notice on a lot of modern albums they will pump up rumble type frequencies a lot and create huge kicks and then subtract lows from the vocals more than some older record. I guess some of that is driven by the popularity of Beats some years back. The big problem with manufacturers that market to the Head-Fi crowd is that they don't publish much of any specs. And a lot of these people making $500+ headphone amps don't know exactly what they're doing as evidenced by incidents in the past where amps blew up or melted a K701. Anyone into that hobby is stuck ordering something and hoping they like it. Pro Audio stores around here don't really stock much more than a Grado RA-1 or that Rega amp last I checked. After hearing rigs that cost 15k with Stax and Abyss stuff, some of those LCD phones, tons of tube amps, I'm fine with my O2 or the ID14 for fun. One comment I read in an interview years back was how mix engineers increasingly brickwall stuff and leave no room for the mastering engineer to work because they don't want someone hating the mastering and blaming them for the sound of the record. Death Magnetic I think was already brickwalled before Ted Jensen got it, for example. I liked it better when there was a handful of guys who mixed and mastered Rock and Metal records and they were given the freedom to make decisions. I don't even think the engineers have all that much freedom anymore. What I also notice is that older records have this sort of effortless, big, thick sound a lot of the time. I've heard when you record loud with tape it just saturates nicely. Replicating that with a DAW seems to elude a lot of people, if it's possible at all. Some of the extra loudness may be done to compensate for the lack of tape. Or perhaps it's guys who never learned how digital worked.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 20, 2018 11:48:32 GMT -6
I do notice on a lot of modern albums they will pump up rumble type frequencies a lot and create huge kicks and then subtract lows from the vocals more than some older record. I guess some of that is driven by the popularity of Beats some years back. When albums are cut to vinyl the the vinyl ME will always HP with a filter that's designed to prevent overexcursion that would cause distortion, skipping, and even damage the cutting head. A lot of albums from that era will have that baked into the general mastering job. I agree that the influence of beats, hip-hop, and EDM have resulted in some fairly egregious abuses in the low end. Also in the metal realm ther popularity of reeally low drop tunings has resulted in a low end that's not able to be reproduced by most speaker systems outside of a concert or club with a large PA with massive subs. Such frequencies are, however, often within the range of headphones. First, just because a set of phones is expensive doesn't mean that it's good. A lot of stuff is sold on imasge, like the Beats junk that sells for hundreds but costs maybe 5 bucks to make. Given that most phones rerally only require a few tenths of a watt to operate at reasonable levels it's pretty easy to blow a set by overpowering them - especially if they're not on someone's head at the time. If they arte, well, I wouldn't want to ber the one wearing the phones! Stax phones are pretty amazing. I have a pair of old Pioneer electrostatics that I keep intending to try to get working that are somewhat similar - I got them years ago at a flea market for 5 bucks from someone who didn't know what he had. Somebody had screwed up the adapter box, probably trying to make them work off a normal phones output. Therte are a lot of half-assed "engineers" andf "MEs" around these days who don't understand that while really slamming the compression might jack up the LEVEL it actually makes the peceived loudness LESS whiole greatly increasing ear fatigue. The reason it doen't seem louder (assuming that playback levels are notmalized) is that the perception of loudness relies on dynamic range. That's one of the major reasons I lost interest in metal some years ago - it just doesn't seem as heavy to me as the older stuff - it's distorted as hell but there's no real weight to it.
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Post by popmann on Apr 20, 2018 13:29:10 GMT -6
the DR12 version in Guitar Hero says the loudness processing was in mastering.
....which isn't to say that there weren't jagged mix issues that needed some loudness processing (clipping) to mask. But, it certainly didn't "need" what it was given in mastering.
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 22, 2018 19:31:34 GMT -6
I meant the mix turned into Jensen was brickwalled. The individual elements seem ok.
There's always been cds taken from vinyl masters. Some of the James Bond stuff. These headphones sold to the Head-Fi crowd are famous for requiring very specific kinds of amplification. Few people there seem to understand it well. Messing with various expensive sources and amps til some random combo matches. I never saw anyone beat Nwavguy in a debate while he was around. It'd be great if audio interface manufacturers understood this stuff so that their products could impedance match and correctly amplify a wide range of phones. Every one of them that I've talked to didn't seem to know much. Stuff like Beats, Yamaha, pretty much anything sold at Best Buy are very easy to power. Maybe only the Senn 700s in the Magnolia section could use an amp. The ruler flat headphones by Mr Speakers were not my thing at all. The famous Senn 800s always sounded weird to me. Stax 009 had the best clarity and speed of any headphone I've heard, but wasn't much fun. Those supposedly use the same tech as condenser mics. Audeze LCD headphones always puzzled me. Every time I tried them I thought they sounded bizarre. I tried every expensive dac, phone, and amp that they had at CanJam 2010 and I preferred my RS-1 with the Arcam and Darkvoice. But I liked the K701 and DT990. The open headphones really did expose the loudness sham. As you were saying, John, everything sounded flat, suffocated. Metal has suffered the most from this. I'll take an old recording like Venom-Black Metal, Angel Witch, or the first Iron Maiden album over this modern stuff any day.
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