Quote:
Originally Posted by Susceptor  ...In the meantime, AES/EBU could try to "force" and set the standard RMS levels to -14 dbFS (chosen by the fact that this is the VU meter setting), with exceptions to other levels given by the dynamic requirment of the song, but to have a maximum RMS peak at -14 dbFS(or let's say -12)... |
-14 really? I know it depends on the kind of music, but -12 sounds pretty good to me on many acoustic heavy projects and up to -10 during the loudest parts on electronic or modern pop. Truthfully though, even at -10 I find many many dance songs are still louder than mine. -14 might actually sound great but would have low enough passages that listeners would miss them in a car or other noisy environment.
About the noise level from amps thing, I never thought of that before but it's interesting because it does have something to do with signal to noise. The signal to noise of the outside world
I'm definitely not defending the loudness war, I just think people should do what sounds best for that particular song and not have to do something different to keep up with the jones'es.
The problem is simple. When Joe shmo puts on a song and it starts out a mid to loud volume his first impression is that it sounds good. People just don't know how to work the volume knob and eq in there cars for some reason. So everybody compresses the cr-p out of everything so it can all sound the same.... sh-tty but the same. Most listeners impression of the same=good, different=bad we all know they don't think about sound anywhere near as deeply as we do.