On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:36:50 GMT, MINe 109
wrote:

In article ,
(Scott Gardner) wrote:

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 16:47:06 GMT, MINe 109
wrote:


You may have discovered for yourself that the trend in new masterings is
toward *less* dynamic range. The loudness wars continue.

What was the specific recording?

I've noticed it to some extent on all of the albums I've recorded so
far. They've all been recordings that were made in the mid 80's or
earlier. The ones where I've noticed it the most have been

Harry Belafonte - "at Carnegie Hall - The Complete Concert"
Joe Jackson - "Night and Day"
Jackson Browne - "The Pretender"

Those are all fairly well known. I'll fire up the turntable and get back
to you.

Thanks.


When I recorded those three, and played the songs back, I had to raise
the volume on my iPod from about 50% to about 75% to get to my desired
listening level. Similar increases were necessary when playing back
on the PC. Once I increased the volume, they sounded fine, but it got
me thinking about what I could do to fix it, since I was having to
constantly adjust volume between listening to my tracks I recorded
from CD and the ones I recorded from LP.

Since you said elsewhere that you are using a cheap turntable and
preamp, presumably to avoid new purchases, you probably won't want to
investigate the Really Nice Compressor to see if a high quality analog
compressor might help.

http://www.fmraudio.com/

Under $200.

I'm only recently getting into what could even be fairly
described as "mid-fi". I have a Rega Planar 3 in my main system, but
I didn't want to move it up into the computer room for the next six
months, so I'm using my older Pioneer direct-drive that I just put a
new cartridge on. The preamp is the "DeeJayPre, by Artcessories.
As low-end as this equipment is, I've actually been very happy
with the results I've gotten so far. I only posted here because of
the overall lack of volume of my recorded tracks, not any other
issues. It's probably because I'm listening to the end results
non-critically, in a compressed format, on an iPod.

Scott Gardner



This reminds me of another thing I've noticed for years. Do Dire
Straits CDs sound quieter than most pop/rock CDs, or is it just me?
It seems like anytime I listen to Dire Straits at what I consider a
comfortable level, and then switch to another disc without changing
the volume, the next disc IS ALWAYS THIS FREAKING LOUD!!!! (grin)

That's what the record companies are afraid of! You might have the early
Dire Straits cds. I'd guess this dynamic "problem" was "cured" in the
recent remastering.

Stephen