Loudness War vs Loudness Curve

[kenjkelly]

Home and Car stereos, and even Boom Boxes, usually have some kind of Loudness Curve correction to raise the Bass and Trebble when the "volume" is lowered (ala Fleischer Munson). In the old days an R-C circuit was attached in parallel to the volume control to provide a contant volume-loudness correction.

So, now I am wondering:
When a song is sqashed, it can be listened to at a lowered volume to get the same relative RMS effect, but when a song is left with lots of room for dynamics, the end user would turn up the volume control. Does the audio (mastering) engineer, using a Flat frequency response system, need to compensate for the fact that the end user will be affected by the user's system's built in Fleischer Munson curve correction?

[narcoman]

dunno but I do know his name is Harvey Fletcher.

And, despite common belief, no-one has seen a Feltcher-Munson curve for fifty years. The one we all look at was actually re-defined in 1956 by Robinson and Dadson. Even the ISO standard from 2003 is called Fletcher Munson, but has nothing to do with their experiments. They were just early protagonists...

I digress...sorry...

[beachhunt]

Originally Posted by kenjkelly

Does the audio (mastering) engineer, using a Flat frequency response system, need to compensate for the fact that the end user will be affected by the user's system's built in Fleischer Munson curve correction?

Not sure if it's compensating per se, in that a ME wouldn't slap a "frown curve" on a song with the thought that someone out there may listen to it with a "smile curve" someday. When it's right in the ME's room, it is typically right in the widest variety of places. Trying to what-if and i-wonder will only narrow the field.

I'd expect the loudness curve features to work better on well-balanced music, and from my perhaps limited experience it does.

[kenjkelly]

Originally Posted by narcoman

dunno but I do know his name is Harvey Fletcher.

And, despite common belief, no-one has seen a Feltcher-Munson curve for fifty years. The one we all look at was actually re-defined in 1956 by Robinson and Dadson. Even the ISO standard from 2003 is called Fletcher Munson, but has nothing to do with their experiments. They were just early protagonists...

I digress...sorry...

And there I was worried about spelling Munson wrong... Thanks.

[djwaudio]

Loudness compensation is designed as the inverse to the average human hearing response at quieter settings. As this is a feature that the end user controls, it is not something that the recording process can manage directly.

In the mastering room, we make balance and tone desisions at listening levels where the ear is most linear. In my experience, this results in music "translating" to a broad variety of settings. I also check my work at different levels to verify balances and timbre. When I get new gear, etc. I will spend a lot of time listening to my work in other systems to get more perspective, which involves toggling the loudness controls.

In recent years, there is more of a moving target with the advent of DSP processing in playback. Listeners can select settings like "jazz hall, or rock stadium, etc" which are impossible to cater to. However, great recordings seem to survive these settings pretty well.

Along with musical balance issues, in mastering we are "playing the speakers" much like a good musician would work nuance out of an instrument. I am intimately connected to how the speaker responds to music, and take advantage of the strengths & weakeness to get the best translation to *whatever* the listener has for settings.


I think your question points to why listeners prefer a recording that is mastered louder in a comparison...

[joeybaggadonuts]

i have always tried to avoid those presets on my car stereo. i wouldn't want to get munsoned out in the middle of nowhere.

[ofsaints]

Not to hijack this thread but I have been very concerned with the unnatural bass bump on car stereos, computer speakers, and boom boxes. Now I'm not talking about a sellectable setting, I'm talk about what they consider flat (and is actually far from it).

All newer computer speakers sounds way too boomy to me. Am I alone here?

[Peakly]

Originally Posted by djwaudio

Along with musical balance issues, in mastering we are "playing the speakers" much like a good musician would work nuance out of an instrument. I am intimately connected to how the speaker responds to music, and take advantage of the strengths & weakeness to get the best translation to *whatever* the listener has for settings.

Nice. That's a cool way of putting it.